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ySTUDIA IN /

THE LIBRARY

of
VICTORIA UNIVERSITY

Toronto

THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY

OF THE

AMERICAN BIBLE SOCIETY

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS
ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO

MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.

TORONTO

ELIAS BOUDINOT
President of the American Bible Society, 1816

The Centennial History

of the

American Bible Society

BY
HENRY OTIS DWIGHT

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1916

Set up and electrotyped. Published, April, 1916

V-A.J

PREFACE

In dealing with so serious and significant a subject as the
effort of a Society to increase the circulation of the Holy
Scriptures in the world the point of view has been that of an
humble servant acknowledging that success in the effort can
proceed only from the guidance and help of Him to whom
these ancient writings belong.

The plan of this book has excluded many things which
may have been expected to appear in a review of labours cov
ering a whole century of the world's progress. Its aim was
to make a book to be read by the people rather than a manual
of reference for the student.

It is natural, then, for this Centennial History to seek in
every chapter the glory of God. The pervasive, living power
of the word of God is emphasised by the facts of distribu
tion in many lands, and these facts suggest praise and thanks
giving on the part of all who have shared in the development
and progress of the Bible cause.

The author would frankly confess his obligation to the
Rev. Dr. William I. Haven and the Rev. Dr. John Fox,
his colleagues as Secretaries of the Society, for kindly criti
cism of the manuscript, much to its advantage.

In publishing this record of the first hundred years of the
labours of the American Bible Society we would suggest that
it is only the beginning of a story which, please God, will con
tinue until the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth as
the waters cover the sea. The future is impenetrable to the
vision of the present writer as it was to the men who founded
the Society a hundred years ago and bravely set forth on un
known paths. Many things clearly ought to be done in the
years immediately before us. In the meantime all may look
forward with yearning and pray with the beloved disciple,
that the Lord Jesus Christ may hasten His coming.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTORY

CHAPTER

PAGE

THE BIBLE THE BOOK OF THE NEW WORLD .

THE MISSIONARY IMPULSE IN AMERICA .

. 6

III

A CRISIS IN THE GROWTH OF THE NATION .

• M

FIRST PERIOD 1816-1821

THE ORGANIZATION OF THE SOCIETY

FINDING ITS F'EET

THE AUXILIARY THEORY

SECOND PERIOD 1821-1832

VII

EARLY EXPERIMENTS

• 48

VIII

A WIDER OUTLOOK

• 55

GROWTH OF AN ADMINISTRATIVE SYSTEM .

. 61

SOME OF THE GREAT MEN

. 69

LATIN AMERICA BETTER KNOWN

XII

A NOTABLE ADVANCE

• 83

XIII

THE AUXILIARY SOCIETIES AT WORK. ....

. 92

XIV

Go IN THIS THY MIGHT

. 102

THIRD PERIOD 1832-1841

A MOST CHRISTIAN ENTHUSIASM

. Ill

XVI

RESPONSIBILITIES FOLLOWING A GREAT DECISION .

. iig

XVII

VENTURES IN LANGUAGES

128

XVIII

INDIVIDUALISM IN DEMOCRACY

136

XIX

AGENTS IN PARTIBUS

T/l/l

THE FINANCING OF THE BIBLE SOCIETY . . .

• 153

XXI

THE GAINS OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS .

162

FOURTH PERIOD 1841-1861

XXII

AMONG DESTITUTE AMERICANS ....

• J/1

XXIII

OTHER DESTITUTE AMERICANS

. 182

XXIV

A VISION OF PERPETUAL GROWTH

. 191

XXV

A CLEARING HOUSE FOR NEEDS

• 199

XXVI

TURBULENT EUROPE

208

CHAPTER

XXVII

XXVI II

XXIX

XXX

XXXI

XXXII

XXXIII

XXXIV

XXXV

XXXVI

XXXVII

XXXVIII

CONTENTS

PAGE

AMONG THE FOREIGN AGENCIES — IN LATIN AMERICA 217
AMONG THE FOREIGN AGENCIES — THE LEVANT . . 226

LIGHT FOR THE DARKER LANDS 236

STORM CLOUDS 246

FIFTH PERIOD 1861-1871
THE BLIGHT OF CIVIL WAR ....
TESTS OF THE SOCIETY'S EFFICIENCY .
SOME FRUITS OF CHRISTIAN FEDERATION

THE PULSE OF LIFE

THE ONE TALENT HID

PEOPLES WHO KNOW NOT GOD'S LAW .
THE JUBILEE CELEBRATION OF 1866 .
FORGET NOT ALL His BENEFITS .

258
268
277
287
297
308
318
326

SIXTH PERIOD 1871-1891

XXXIX PAYING THE COST OF WAR 337

XL EVENTS AND EMERGENCIES IN THE BIBLE HOUSE . . 347

XLI MAKING THE BIBLE SPEAK WITH TONGUES . . . 357

XLII DISTRIBUTION IN THE HOME LAND 368

XLI 1 1 THE BIBLE SENT AS A FOREIGN MISSIONARY . . . 379

XLIV SYSTEMATIZING THE DISTRIBUTION ABROAD . . . 390

XLV THE CALL OF THE FAR EAST 401

XLVI JAPAN AND KOREA 411

XLVII MEDIATING BETWEEN EUROPE AND ASIA .... 420

XLVIII SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS OF SERVICE 431

SEVENTH PERIOD 1891-1916

XLIX AT THE BIBLE HOUSE 440

L CHANGES IN THE AUXILIARY SYSTEM 451

LI NEW METHODS AT HOME 460

LII LATIN AMERICA 470

LIII OPENING DOORS OF THE FAR EAST 482

LIV THE WHITE ELEPHANT AND THE DRAGON .... 490

LV AMERICA IN THE ORIENT 503

LVI THE BIBLE IN APOSTOLIC FIELDS 512

LVII THE PROBLEM OF MEANS 521

LVIII THY ORDINANCES ARE MY DELIGHT 530

APPENDICES 538

INDEX . 579

ILLUSTRATIONS

Elias Boudinot, President of the Society, 1816 Frontispiece

FACING
PAGE

The Bible House, New York 192

James Wood, President of the Society, 1916 . . . 442

CENTENNIAL HISTORY

INTRODUCTORY PERIOD
CHAPTER I

THE BIBLE THE BOOK OF THE NEW WORLD

THE beginning of the story of the American Bible Soci
ety is found in those providences of God which made the
Bible the book of the American Colonies.

Had there been no endeavour in the seventeenth century
by European kings and rulers violently to control intellects
and consciences awakened by the Reformation, there might
have been no American Bible Society. It is not necessary to
speculate upon this point. There is, however, occasion to
call to mind, sometimes, the extent to which early settlers of
the American Colonies now forming part of the United
States had emigrated from their homes because they were
lovers of the Bible. The Dutch and Swedes, who settled in
New York and on the Delaware River, came out of the tur
moil of religious wars, and brought their Bibles with them.
The settlers of New England emigrated in order to secure
liberty of conscience. They not only brought the Bible over
on the Mayflower, but in the period from 1620 to 1640 they
called about them some 20,000 people from the old country,
who, like themselves, had suffered for the sake of this char
ter of their liberty. In 1689 the Friends had well estab
lished their " Holy Experiment " in Pennsylvania. To New
York, Maryland and South Carolina Huguenots fled, Bible
in hand, from France after the revocation of the Edict of
Nantes. Like them were the German Mennonites and Pala
tines, who escaped from religious oppressors in their home
land, and became rooted in Pennsylvania. The Presby
terians from Ulster, who took refuge in the Carolinas and

2 THE BIBLE IN THE NEW WORLD

in Georgia, were plain God-fearing people, who made the
Bible the guide not only of their politics, but of their lives.
The Virginia Colonists of 1607 may have included mere
gold-seekers ; but, under Captain John Smith, Jamestown
was early provided with a church, and the Bible became a
source of instruction to many of the settlers.

So, of almost all of the early immigrants to America, it
might be said as the Roman Catholic Brunetiere said of the
Huguenots, when speaking of the paralyzing effect of the
revocation of the Edict of Nantes upon moral progress in
France : " It drove into exile the people who called them
selves men of the Bible, and who carried their morality,
faith, and intelligence everywhere. . . . Louis XIV cut the
nerve of French morality for the metaphysical satisfaction
of having God praised only in Latin."

Stephen Charnock, the old Puritan of Cromwell's time,
noted as a result of his observation that " all God's provi
dences are but his touch on the strings of the great instru
ment of the world." That these men, the American Colo
nists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, had been
driven from their homes by religious persecution, was griev
ous ; but, in truth, this emigration was simply a turning of
the wrath of man to the glory of God.

These men loved the Bible. It may seem a little singular,
perhaps, that if we leave out of account Eliot's Version of
the Bible in the language of the Massachusetts Indians, and
some Bible portions which Spanish Friars printed in Mexico
in the end of the sixteenth century, we find the first Bible
printed in America to be German, published in Philadelphia
in 1/43, by the enterprising Christopher Sauer, in order to
supply the large German population who demanded the
Word of God.

Bibles in English were a monopoly of the king's printers
in England and Scotland at this time; but the monopoly
existed to insure the text rather than to give wealth to the
printers. A small nonpareil Bible, at the beginning of the
eighteenth century, could be had for a shilling, or at most
for a shilling and sixpence. With such prices American
printers could not compete; so American readers depended
upon the king's printers, too.

A VOTE FOR BIBLES IN CONGRESS 3

With all the other upheavals which the Revolution
brought to the colonies it suddenly stopped Bible sales. Con
nection had been severed with the London printing houses.
In 1777 a famine of Bibles was one of the many ills which
a distracted Congress was called upon promptly to remedy
at one of the Pennsylvania towns where it was able to meet
in security. Dr. Allison, one of its chaplains, petitioned
Congress to order the printing of at least twenty thousand
Bibles. The lack of suitable paper, and even of sufficient
type, in all the thirteen States for such a work negatived
the scheme; but Congress voted by seven States against
six to import twenty thousand Bibles from Holland, and
this plan was set in execution.

Six States voted against the proposition. These were:
Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Dela
ware, and New York. The seven States which considered
scarcity of Bibles a concern of national importance were :
Georgia, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut,
Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. Let us note,
by the way, that the vote of New Jersey in that Congress
was cast by Elias Boudinot, one of the Trustees of Prince
ton University, eminent as a lawyer, who was afterwards
President of the Congress, and later the first President of
the American Bible Society.

About the time that Congress was making its provision
of Bibles Robert Aitken, of Philadelphia, printed the first
English Bible which came from an American press. The
enterprise nearly ruined him, for almost as soon as the book
was ready, peace with Great Britain was signed. Cheap
Bibles from England appeared in the bookshops again, and
the Aitken Philadelphia Bible lay dust-gathering on the
shelves of the book-sellers. It is worth noting that the
Bible which fed the soul of Abraham Lincoln in the Ken
tucky log cabin of his boyhood, was one of those cheap little
Bibles imported from London.

The records of Bible printing in America show that many
souls were being fed in those days by the wonderful words of
life. In the later years of the eighteenth century, Bibles
were printed not only in Philadelphia, New York and Bos
ton, but in Trenton, New Jersey ; Worcester, Newburyport,

4 THE BIBLE IN THE NEW WORLD

and Northampton, Massachusetts ; at New Haven and Hart
ford, Connecticut ; at Albany, New York ; and at Wilming
ton, Delaware, etc. The Bible had become the book of the
New World.

God's book had become man's book, since need to know
themselves and their God everywhere impels men to read,
ponder and absorb its teachings. The book so becomes to
lovers of the Bible a groundwork for their activities, habits
and character. In the Bible we all have found high and in
spiring ideas of God, answering every yearning of the needy
soul. There we all have been won over to noble concep
tions of right, purity and service, have acquired certainty
that life is more than meat or raiment; and Bible axioms
have been taken up so as to become a part of our very na
ture. From the Bible the people have gained that enthusi
asm for high attainment which ennobles the humblest man
or woman and brings success, in some degree, to every ef
fort permeated by a will to follow the leading of the Divine
Master. Jt is this nurture in the Bible which has built up
in our people a breadth of vision, and a deep consciousness
of duty sure to show itself in good will to the less favored,
such as appears in the widespread impulse to aid missionary
and Bible Societies established for the sake of God.

Bible distribution among those who have it not used to
spring from what scoffers called a mere theory ; that is, from
a belief that the book has the same living power to change
men of every race which it has shown among those of our
own race. But the idea is exploded which regards this as
a theory. The Bible is to-day in the hands of tens of thou
sands of people, speaking several hundred different tongues,
and belonging to all the races of mankind. After one hun
dred years of labor, the belief which led men to begin mis
sionary enterprises has become absolute certainty. In every
land those changed through the living and pervasive power
of the Bible gain, and transmit to their children, some tend
ency to a nobler life. Bible readers thus influence perma
nently the community, or the nation, or the race, of which
they are factors.

In the thirteen American Colonies large groups of choice
souls were more or less hidden from sight by another sort

WHO THE INFLUENTIAL MEN WERE 5

of settler, who cared nothing for the Bible ; had no use for
any rule or any theory that did not result in some way in
gaining fields, or harvests, or more precious valuables which
can be weighed, and counted, and jingled. Nevertheless,
generally speaking, the influential men and leaders of the
colonies were apt to be found among the religious sections
of the people.

To use the words of an anonymous writer in the old
Panoplist: l " In no other country that ever existed was
less restraint put upon men with regard to their religious or
moral sentiments and behaviour. Here (in America) if a
man is corrupt in his religious sentiments, there is nothing
to obstruct his publishing them to others, beyond the re
straint which he feels from the opinions and frowns of the
virtuous, or the superior deference which the truth always
challenges from falsehood. Here, if anywhere, men speak
and act for themselves. Yet in no other country did
Christianity ever command more respect from the people at
large, or exhibit a greater influence on the minds and con
duct of men taken in a mass. . . . Let not the writer be
understood to mean, by the foregoing remarks, that the
great body of the people of the United States, or that a ma
jority of them, are Christians in the most important sense
of that term. What he intends is that the proportion of
such Christians is comparatively large, and that the influ
ence of Christian doctrine and example over the great mass
of the people is such as to warrant all that he has said."

Dwellers in that half-mastered wilderness noted in their
midst shining lights, seemingly small and insignificant as the
firefly flashes of a summer night. But amid the toil and
murk which were the lot of that people, those little lights
became beacons for wanderers, because they had been
kindled from the great light for the feet of men — the Word
of God.

*A religious magazine founded by Rev. Dr. Jedidiah Morse and
published in Boston.

CHAPTER II

THE MISSIONARY IMPULSE IN AMERICA

IN each of the American Colonies, before any large ex
pansion took place, a policy had to be adopted toward the
Indians. They were curious, suspicious, and often hostile
to the pushing white strangers. Even inanimate nature op
posed the advances of the Colonists upon its hidden treas
uries. The forests resisted the intruder with their silent
mystery and isolation ; with their heavy undergrowth here,
and tangled ropes of the wild grape there ; and now and
then with a broad abattis of huge trunks, twisted by a cy
clone as though intended to bar, by acres of interlaced and
jagged branches, access to some hidden, great prize. Moun
tains hindered any advance, walling in the land beyond with
steep, rocky heights, or bewildering adventurers by offering
them dark glens, and deep gulches that led to nothing more
than another line of walls. Rivers forbade progress, with
their deep, dark, unfeeling waters that could not be passed.
And so it was fully a hundred years after the earlier land
ings before the colonists made any great advances away
from the coast.

Meanwhile the great rivers of the Atlantic coast had be
come friendly helpers to those who explored northern New
York and the broad interior of Pennsylvania. Before the
Revolutionary War, too, adventurous hunters from Vir
ginia and the Carolinas had found passes through the moun
tains into Kentucky and Tennessee, and had let the Ken
tucky, Tennessee, and Cumberland Rivers carry them, with
their families, far westward toward the Mississippi. In
1792 Kentucky was admitted to the Union as a state, and in
1796 Tennessee. Pennsylvania was the least thinly popu
lated of the states ; and at the end of the eighteenth century
groups of settlers were scattered in meadow land and along

EFFECTS OF THE WESLEYAN REVIVAL 7

river banks as far to the westward and northward as the
Indians would permit.

About the same time the breezes brought from England
to the eastern colonies of America unwonted voices. Where
doubts and scoffings had filled the air, at the end of the
eighteenth century stirred by the Wesleyan revival, the call
to teach all nations rang out clear and positive. The ap
peals of William Carey in England had led to the establish
ment of the Baptist Missionary Society in 1792. His ideas
had aroused the churches to such an extent that the London
Missionary Society was formed in 1795, with the aim of
evangelising those South Sea Islands described to the world
by Captain Cook ; the Church Missionary Society, with an
eye to reaching Africa, in 1798; the London Religious Tract
Society in 1799.

A pleasing circumstance which appears on examining the
American religious periodicals of the opening years of the
nineteenth century is the quickness of the healing of the
wounds left by the Revolutionary War. One ancestry, one
faith, one language, may permit petty misunderstandings,
such as might spring up between husband and wife ; yet
such ties are too strong to be permanently broken. Noble
impulses in one must naturally react upon the other. The
English religious press was often quoted in those early
American publications ; and there was little or nothing to
suggest that but a few years earlier friendly relations with
England constituted a crime. In England there was a So
ciety for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts,
and a Society for the promotion of Christian Knowledge —
both formed in the seventeenth century. The Massachu
setts Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge
among the Indians was established in 1803. Following the
establishment of a Religious Tract Society in London, a
Connecticut Religious Tract Society was established in New
Haven in 1807. The Massachusetts Missionary Society
had already been established in 1800. The New Hamp
shire Missionary Society began in 1804 " to oppose that tor
rent of errors which threatens to deluge our infant settle
ments." The same impulse which had stirred British Chris
tians, awakened among the feeble American Colonies quick

8 THE MISSIONARY IMPULSE

response, as though the command to teach the world had
now first been spoken.

In 1803 the purchase of " Louisiana " from the Emperor
Napoleon added to the American domains an enormous tract
of wilderness west of the Mississippi River, whose bound
aries were then inconceivably distant, since they included
one-third of the entire area of the present United States.
This purchase of a wilderness, ridiculed at the time even
more than Mr. Seward's purchase of Alaska was, gave the
United States unchallenged ownership of the lower Missis
sippi, and had the effect, at the time unexpected, of increas
ing among the states of the Union still in the embryo stage,
with little real solidarity, a broader aspiration and a stronger
sense of nationality. This was a fitting prelude to the
strong outburst of feeling among religious people which fol
lowed information of the establishment of the British and
Foreign Bible Society in 1804.

The suggestion of the Reverend Joseph Hughes, when a
few men were discussing the formation of a Bible Society
for the supply of Wales, had the effect of an electric shock
to quicken men's faculties. At the thought of a Bible So
ciety, Mr. Hughes had remarked: " And if for Wales, why
not for the whole world ? " No one could nor would any
one wish to put that question out of mind. It led to the
founding of the British and Foreign Bible Society; and
when, a few years later, the latent power in that remark had
been proved by experience, the same question led to the
establishment of many Bible Societies in the United States.

The first was the Philadelphia Bible Society, organised in
December, 1808. It adopted a constitution differing some
what from that of the British and Foreign Bible Society,
but specifying that the Bibles which the Society should
publish must be without notes ; copies being distributed in
all languages calculated to be useful, whenever this seems
to be necessary. Some thought that the Philadelphia So
ciety ought to design to serve the whole country. It was,
however, the feeling of the founders of the Society that this
would not be wise. A general Society, extending through
out the United States, would be unwieldy, they thought,
and would languish in all places excepting the centre of its

THE FIRST BIBLE SOCIETIES 9

operations. It appeared to them that if similar societies
were established in the principal cities of the Union, they
might, by corresponding with each other, and occasionally
uniting their funds, act with more vigour and greater effect
than the one general Society. "If no similar Society should
be formed in any part of this country," the Managers said,
" then it will be the duty of this Society to extend its arm.1
from Maine to Georgia, and from the Atlantic to the Mis
sissippi."

They immediately sent circulars to leading persons in
the different religious denominations throughout the United
States urging them to establish Bible Societies on a similar
basis.

The good people in Connecticut next moved to organise a
Bible Society (in May, 1809). Then came Massachusetts
with its Bible Society in July of the same year. New York
followed in November, 1809, and New Jersey in December.
Within six years time more than one hundred Bible Societies
had been organised in the United States, with the simple
purpose of providing Bibles for the poor who had no means
of supplying themselves. Almost every one of the new So
cieties had in its Constitution provision for extending its
benefactions when possible to heathen lands.

The British and Foreign Bible Society sent hearty con
gratulations to each of these new Societies; and realising
that such societies would need tangible help in beginning
their operations, it made grants of from Three Hundred to
Five Hundred Dollars to each of the state Societies. In
the masterly history of the first hundred years of the British
and Foreign Bible Society, Mr. Canton remarks 1 that by
the end of 1816 that Society had presented to sixteen
American Bible Societies 3,122 pounds sterling.'-'

It is not a matter for surprise that those connected with
the American Societies frequently expressed their affection

1 Vol. I, p. 248.

2 The donation of five hundred pounds which it made to the
American Bible Society upon its organisation is not included in this
amount; nor is a donation of one hundred and fifty pounds to the
Bible and Common Prayer-Book Society, which hardly stands in
the same general category as the interdenominational Bible Socie
ties.

io THE MISSIONARY IMPULSE

for the British Society under the title, " Venerable Parent."
A little later than this, a speaker on the Bible cause in New
York expressed his feeling in fulsome language, as follows :
" With the profoundest veneration I bow before the majesty
of the British and Foreign Bible Society. This illustrious
association (its history is recorded in Heaven, and ought to
be proclaimed on earth) has been instrumental in distributing
a million and a half of volumes of the Word of Life, and
has magnanimously expended, in a single year, near four
hundred thousand dollars for the salvation of man. This
transcendent institution is the brightest star in the constella
tion of modern improvements, and looks down from its
celestial elevation on the diminished glories of the Grecian
and Roman men.'5 *

A true missionary impulse leads Christians who wish to
tell the glorious facts to those who do not know Jesus
Christ "to begin at Jerusalem." This is the natural order;
but men at home who are stubbornly refractory may not
bar others from hearing the message of Jesus Christ; so
the impulse to tell facts to all will not tolerate sitting still
until the last inhabitant of the home city has surrendered.

A plain, rather bashful student in Williams College,
Samuel J. Mills, musing on this subject, felt the need of our
own frontiersmen. He also pictured the ignorance of the
wild barbarians beyond, and then questioned whether poor,
dark Africa must wait until all in America have consented
to drink of the water of life. In his diary is one sentence,
which, to him, was the conclusion of the whole matter:
" Though we are very little beings, we must not rest satis
fied until we have made our influence extend to the remotest
corner of this ruined world." With unfailing persistence
Mills held that doctrine up to the very end of his short life.

The first public work to which Mills put his hand was to
go with some like-minded students in Andover Theological
Seminary to some of the leading clergymen of his acquaint
ance. The students announced to the astonished pastors
that they were ready to give their lives to work as foreign

1 See the address of George Griffin, Esq., at the ratification meet
ing held in behalf of the American Bible Society at City Hall, in
New York, May 13, 1816.

SAMUEL J. MILLS 11

missionaries ; and they wished to know whether Christian
people would support them in this enterprise. This was
early in 1810. The quiet earnestness of Mr. Mills' ques
tion impressed the good ministers, and they took the matter
seriously in hand. The formation, in September, 1810, of
the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mis
sions followed. The despatch to India of five of the de
voted volunteers as missionaries of the American Board
was the first step taken by that great Society toward ex
tending its influence " to the remotest corner of this world."

Mills was not one of the five chosen to go abroad. Per
haps he was disappointed ; but he was soon called to mis
sionary work at home which, as we shall see, was destined
closely to connect him with the organisation of the Ameri
can Bible Society. It is a little singular, by the way, that
the man who drafted the constitution of the British and
Foreign Bible Society in 1804 was ^Iso a Samuel Mills, for
forty-three years a member of the directing " Committee "
of that Society. The extent of the territory added to the
United States by the purchase of " Louisiana " was so
great, and current knowledge of its people so little that the
Massachusetts Missionary Society in October, 1812, ap
pointed Reverend J. M. Schermerhorn as one of its mission
aries, in co-operation with the Connecticut Missionary So
ciety, to explore the West and Southwest. Mr. Samuel J.
Mills was selected as a companion to Mr. Schermerhorn on
this adventurous journey.

Five months were allotted to the young men for their
work ; this would be mainly occupied in travel, much of the
time through pathless forests. It was a happy alleviation
of the strain of such a journey that the two young mission
aries were introduced to General Andrew Jackson at Nash
ville, Tennessee, then on the point of starting for Natchez
with fifteen hundred soldiers ; the war with Great Britain
having just commenced. General Jackson liked the young
men, and invited them to go as far as Natchez on his
steamer ; which they were glad enough to do. It was some
thing of a descent from this high level of comfort as guests
of the general commanding the army, when the two men
engaged passage on a flat-boat from Natchez to New

12 THE MISSIONARY IMPULSE

Orleans ; preferring this discomfort to an expenditure of six
times as much money for the sake of going on a steamer.

The return journey from New Orleans was still more
painful. The two missionaries were just one month going
from New Orleans overland to Nashville, a distance of five
hundred miles through heavy forests, thick canebrakes and
bridgeless rivers, so remote from human habitation that
wolves and bears and rattlesnakes were ready to dispute the
right of way.

\Yhen the explorers returned from this long expedition,
they made a moving report of the extraordinary situation
which they had found. Almost as soon as they had passed
Pittsburg, the story became monotonous ; the little settle
ments were without religious privileges. Again and again
they found districts where fifty thousand or more people
were without opportunity to hear preaching, and almost
entirely without the Bible for their own comfort or for the
bringing up of their children.

Mr. Mills was so moved by the prevailing destitution that
at every opportunity he gathered people together and in
duced them to form a local Bible Society ; for there were
plenty of good people who, when brought together, found
that they could work with some prospect of success. In
this way the Ohio State Bible Society, the Indiana Bible
Society, the Illinois Bible Society and the Nashville, Ten
nessee, Bible Society were formed. The Kentucky Bible
Society at Lexington was reorganised, and stirred with new
hope. A new Bible Society was established at Natchez,
Mississippi ; and finally, after consulting with the Roman
Catholic clergy of New Orleans, the New Orleans Bible So
ciety was organised ; the Roman Catholic Bishop saying that
if the books circulated were the translations favoured by the
Roman Catholic Church, he would contribute to the So
ciety's funds.

The two explorers had been furnished by the New York
Bible Society and the Philadelphia Bible Society with a
certain number of Bibles, with which they rejoiced the
hearts of those responsible for the work of the new Bible
Societies which they left on their trail.

In 1814 the Massachusetts Missionary Society appointed

RELIGIOUS DESTITUTION OF SETTLERS 13

Mr. Mills to make another tour over practically the same
ground which he had examined two years before; this time
to preach and distribute religious literature, seeking to en
courage the different communities to organise for the sup
port of pastors at least a part of the year. The Rev. Daniel
Smith of Georgia was appointed to be Mr. Mills' com
panion on this journey.

After visiting various points from Steubenville to Mari
etta, they urged the Missionary Society to establish a river
mission ; the preacher to go in a boat along the Virginia and
the Ohio shores, stopping at eight or ten stations, so that
the people might hear a sermon at least once in a while.
Meeting a man in Illinois who said that he had been trying
for ten years to buy a Bible, it was brought home to Mr.
Mills' heart that this man was one thousand miles from any
place where a Bible could be printed, and that many of the
people in that wilderness must remain destitute to the end of
their lives.

This second expedition brought Mr. Mills to New Orleans
in the middle of February, 1815, a month after General
Jackson's victory over General Pakenham and the English
Army. He went about among the hospitals, distributing
Scriptures to sick and wounded of both armies. He visited
the prisons, comforting and cheering the British prisoners.
He distributed in the city three thousand French Testa
ments which the Philadelphia Bible Society had sent to New
Orleans ; Roman Catholics receiving them gladly, and rarely
objecting. It was to Mills a happy experience.

Mr. Mills returned directly to Massachusetts on fire
with the tremendous needs of the West and South. His
soul was burdened by the problem of awakening the people
of the Eastern States to an understanding, in the first
place, of the enormous possibilities of the Western country ;
and in the second place, of the religious destitution of the
settlers throughout these new territories. In times when
prompt and radical action in behalf of the kingdom of Jesus
Christ is necessary, God commonly thrusts forward a man
to show the people what should be done. For that critical
moment the man thus thrust into the work by our divine
Master was Samuel J. Mills.

CHAPTER III

A CRISIS IN THE GROWTH OF THE NATION

OCCUPIED with strenuous labours for their daily bread
and with efforts to lay the foundations of their future wel
fare, settlers in the West and South had no time to con
sider ideals. These sturdy well-meaning people, left with
out wise advisers, were carelessly preparing for themselves
catastrophe, and for the nation humiliation. Many were in
clined to say to God, like some of the ancients, " Depart
from us for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways."
Their fair lands were in danger of becoming strongholds
of ungodliness.

The reports of Mr. Samuel J. Mills and his companions
aroused Christians everywhere to the danger of such a situ
ation. Mills' passionate words were not the ravings of
an alarmist. But he wrote, " There are districts containing
from twenty to fifty thousand people entirely destitute of
the Scriptures and of religious privileges. How shall they
hear without a preacher ? Never will the impression be
erased from our hearts that has been made by beholding
those scenes of wide-spread desolation. The whole country
from Lake Erie to the Gulf of Mexico is as the valley of
the shadow of death. Only here and there a few rays
of gospel light pierce through the awful gloom. This vast
expanse of our country contains more than one million in
habitants. The number of Bibles sent them by all the So
cieties in the United States is by no means as great as the
yearly increase of the population. The original number
of people still remains unsupplied.

" When we entered on this mission we applied in person
to the oldest and wealthiest of the Bible institutions, but
we could only obtain a single small donation. The existing
Societies have not yet been able to supply the demand in

THE LOCAL SOCIETIES INADEQUATE 15

their own immediate vicinity. Some mightier effort must
be made. Their scattered and feeble exertions are by no
means adequate to the accomplishment of the object. It is
thought by judicious people that half a million of Bibles are
necessary for the supply of the destitute in the United
States. It is a foul blot on the national character. Chris
tian America must arise and wipe it away.

" The existing Societies are not able to do this work.
They want union ; they want co-operation ; they want re
sources. If a National Institution cannot be formed, appli
cation ought to be made immediately to the British and For
eign Bible Society for aid." 1

All seem to have agreed that Bibles were essential in this
emergency. Missionaries could do little without them, and
even where there was no missionary the Bible could awaken
the conscience. In 1814 many persons thought that since
there were nearly a hundred Bible Societies in the land,
with patience, the danger of irreligion becoming rooted in
the new settlements would be dissipated. This opinion
sprang from blind ignorance. Referring to the inadequacy
of the existing system, Mr. Mills said that in order to get
five thousand copies of the Scriptures in French as a partial
supply for forty or fifty thousand French Catholics who are
destitute, " we have to go or send to the several Bible Socie
ties from Maine to Georgia, and to wait until we receive in
formation from the Directing Committees. Four, five, or
six months must elapse, and perhaps a year before we are
able to make a report. And by this time the most favour
able opportunity for distributing the Bible may have passed
by. And although it may be found that we are possessed of
ability to effect the desired object, yet if we are obliged
to conduct in this way, we shall be very liable to be defeated,
and we may have to send to the directors of the British and
Foreign Bible Society requesting that they would make a
donation of Bibles for the supply of the destitute within the
limits of the United States." :

Aspirations for some unity of action between the Bible

1 Life of S. J. Mills by Gardiner Spring, p. 83-86.
t, October 1813, p. 357.

16 A CRISIS FOR THE NATION

Societies appeared occasionally in the religious periodicals,
but nothing practical resulted. At last, in the autumn of
1814 the Honorable Elias Boudinot, LL.D., President of
the New Jersey JJible Society, sent to all the Bible Societies
in the United States a statement that on the 3Oth of August,
1814, the Board of Alanagers of the New Jersey Bible So
ciety adopted the following resolution :

" Whereas it is the duty of the New Jersey Bible Society
to use all the means which a kind providence has put into
their power to promote the great objects of their associa
tion ; and whereas the greatest union of Christians, of every
profession, in so desirable a cause, promises most success to
the undertaking— On motion it was resolved that a com
mittee of three be appointed to take into consideration, and
report their opinion of the most probable means in the power
of the society for uniting the people of God, of all denomi
nations, in the United States, in carrying on the great work
of disseminating the gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the
habitable world, making report to the present session of the
Board of Managers."

Dr. Boudinot, and the Rev. Drs. Wharton and Wood-
hull were appointed a committee to consider and report on
the foregoing, who, after duly considering the same, re
ported these resolutions, which, having been laid before the
society, were approved and included in the circular to the
Bible Societies. The substance of these resolutions was :
First, that it would greatly promote the accomplishment of
the important purposes for which the Bible Societies in the
United States have associated, if a union of them all could
be obtained, by an annual or biennial meeting of delegates,
to be appointed by the societies in each state, at some central
place to be agreed on, to conduct the common interests of
the whole respecting the distribution of the Sacred Scrip
tures beyond the limits of particular states, or where a so
ciety in a state cannot furnish so many copies as are wanted.
Second, that each Bible Society be requested to appoint at
least two delegates to meet at Philadelphia on the Monday
preceding the third Wednesday in the following May with
full power to form a plan for a well organised and consti
tuted body or society, to be called the " General Association

DR. BOUDINOTS TENACITY 17

of the Bible Societies in the United States," or such other
name or title as may then be agreed on, for the purpose of
disseminating the Scriptures of the Old and New Testa
ment, according to the present approved version, without
note or comment. Third, that the president of the New
Jersey Bible Society, whenever he shall receive notice of
the appointment of delegates from twenty societies, is em
powered to give public notice thereof in the newspapers, and
that the meeting of the said delegates will be had accord
ingly.

In the fall of 1814 Mr. Mills had explained in a leading
religious periodical his idea of a General Bible Society which
would meet the need of the country. Possibly this proposal
of Mr. Mills had won favour. However this may be, as
the months went by and answers to the suggestion of* the
New Jersey Bible Society for a General Association of
Bible Societies were received, not even twenty of them ap
proved the plan. A year had passed since the report of
Schermerhorn and Mills had first called attention to the
dangers threatening the nation, but nothing had been done !

The objections to the plan of the New Jersey Society were
stated positively by the New York, and in most detail by the
Philadelphia Bible Society. They were that the proposal
was unseasonable ; that it was without precedent ; that such
an association would be useless ; that it might prove injurious
and that the plan in any case was impracticable. In short
a rooted antipathy was felt in some quarters for such an as
sociation of the independent Bible Societies.

Dr. Boudinot inherited Huguenot devotion from his father
and Welsh tenacity from his mother. He wras the sort of
man that does not easily perceive defeat. He afterwards
stated that he had determined in case of failure in another
attempt " to commence the great business, at all events, with
the aid of a few laymen who had testified their willingness to
go all lengths with me." x For the moment he answered
the Philadelphia Society by a " thick pamphlet." Thereby
he won the support of the Connecticut Bible Society at its
annual meeting of May, 1815. Correspondence with other

1 First Annual Report of the American Bible Society, p. 46.

iS A CRISIS FOR THE NATION

Bible Societies followed, and although difficulties of com
munication made it hard to know when the last word had
been said, the New Jersey Bible Society made a new pro
posal, which was favourably received. On the 3ist of Janu
ary, 1816, Dr. Boudinot was at last able to call a convention
of representatives of the Bible Societies to meet in New
York. This first act in the formation of the American Bible
Society was as follows :

" To the members of the several Bible Societies in the United

States :
" Brethren :

" It is with peculiar pleasure that I once more address
you on the interesting subject of extending the Redeemer's
kingdom by an unlimited and gratuitous circulation of the
Holy Scriptures.

" From the most correct information that has lately been
received, it has become evident that the demand for Bibles
in the remote and frontier settlements of our country, is
far beyond the resources of the several Bible Societies now
existing in the United States.

" An institution, founded on a more extensive plan, that
will concentrate and direct the efforts of our numerous and
increasing Bible Associations seems at present to be the
general wish of the friends of revealed Truth. Such an in
stitution has a powerful claim to the liberal support of the
Christian public. This plan, which originated with the New
Jersey Bible Society, has, within the last year, engaged the
attention of the Board of Managers of the New York Bible
Society.

' Their resolutions, inserted below, contain the result of
their deliberations on this important subject. A brighter
day appears now to have dawned on our Western Hemi
sphere.

' That the present effort may be rendered an efficient
means of salvation to many thousands of destitute poor in
our own, and more distant lands, should be the wish and
prayer of every sincere Christian.

" And may the blessing of Him who is ' able to do for us
abundantly more than we can either ask or think ' give it

A CONVENTION OF BIBLE SOCIETIES 19

complete success — ' unto whom be glory in the church
of Jesus Christ, throughout all ages — world without end.

" These are the resolutions of the Board of Managers
of the New York Bible Society :

" 'ist, Resolved, that it is highly desirable to obtain upon as
large a scale as possible, a co-operation of the efforts of the
Christian community throughout the United States, for the
efficient distribution of the Holy Scriptures.

" ' 2nd, That, as a mean for the attainment of this end, it
will be expedient to have a convention of delegates from such
Bible Societies, as shall be disposed to concur in this measure,
to meet - — on the — — day of - — next, for the purpose of
considering whether such a co-operation may be effected in
a better manner than by the correspondence of the different
societies as now established ; and if so, that they prepare
the draft of a plan for such co-operation to be submitted
to the different societies for their decision.

" ' 3d, That the Secretary transmit the above resolutions
to the President of the New Jersey Bible Society, as ex
pressive of the opinion of this Board on the measures therein
contained, at the same time signifying the wish of this
Board, that he would exercise his own discretion in bringing
the subject before the public.'

" In pursuance of the foregoing resolutions requesting
me to designate the time and place at which the proposed
meeting of delegates from the different Bible Societies of
the United States shall take place ; after mature delibera
tion, and consulting with judicious friends on this impor
tant subject, I am decidedly of opinion that the most suit
able place for the proposed meeting is the city of New
York — and the most convenient time the second Wednes
day of May next — and I do appoint and recommend the
said meeting to be held at that time and place.

" Should it please a merciful God to raise me from the
bed of sickness to which I am now confined, it will afford
me the highest satisfaction to attend at that time, and con
tribute all in my power towards the establishment and
organisation of a Society which, with blessing of God, I
have not the least doubt will, in time, in point of usefulness,
be second only to the parent institution (the British and

20 A CRISIS FOR THE NATION

Foreign Bible Society), will shed an unfading lustre on
our Christian community, and will prove a blessing to our
country and the world.

(signed) " ELIAS BOUDINOT,

i( President of the New Jersey Bible Society."
" Burlington, January 31, 1816."

Dr. Boudinot had rendered distinguished services
to his country during the Revolutionary War ; as President
of the National Congress, at the close of that war he had
signed the treaty of peace with Great Britain ; and now it
was his high privilege to sign a document which, in his
hope, would stand for much in the history of his country
saved to permanent loyalty to the Lord Jesus Christ. That
the call for a convention of Bible Societies was signed on
his sick bed detracted but little from his satisfaction.

FIRST PERIOD 1816-1821
CHAPTER IV

THE ORGANISATION OF THE SOCIETY

THE Garden Street Dutch Reformed Church, of which
Rev. Dr. Matthews was pastor, in 1816 was a plain, unpre
tentious building of old New York. Long ago it gave place,
with all of the residences about it, to the demands for
space made by the money-getters. The very street on
which it fronted is now hidden under the name of Exchange
Place.

On the 8th of May, 1816, the Consistory Room of this
church was opened to a meeting of clergy and laymen in
terested in the question whether the new West could be led
to learn God's ways in nation-building. The struggle be
tween good and evil was in the thoughts of all the dele
gates. In one sense that struggle was transferred from
the frontiers in the valley of the great river to this city
Meeting House. Here, God willing, the great question was
to touch decision.

For this was the gathering which the president of the
New Jersey Bible Society had called to choose some prac
ticable method of carrying God's word westward to the
thousands fast settling into content with irreligion. Dr.
Boudinot was not able to be present at this memorable
gathering; but behind the visitors, far back in the room,
sat Samuel J. Mills the ardent believer in Bible Societies
as missionary agencies. He had come there full of hope ;
but his heart was weighed down with fear when he realised
that the gathering would be composed of representatives of
different sects. Many of the most polemical theologians of
the different denominations had been brought together there
with the notion that they could agree on common ground
of action.

22 ORGANISATION OF THE SOCIETY [1816-

Mr. Joshua M. Wallace, of Burlington, New Jersey, an
Episcopalian and a leading member of the New Jersey Bible
Society, was chosen chairman of the Convention. Rev. Dr.
John B. Romeyn, delegate from the New York Bible So
ciety, pastor of the Cedar Street Reformed Church ; and
Rev. Dr. Lyman Beecher, the father of " all the Beechers," a
young man who as pastor of the Congregational Church at
Litchfield, Connecticut, had already fought well as a cham
pion of temperance among the clergy, were appointed secre
taries of the Convention.

The Convention was composed of men who were all dis
tinguished in some direction. There was John Criscom
of the Society of Friends, organiser of the common school
system of New Jersey; a philosopher, as well as a professor
of Chemistry. Another man of note was Rev. Dr.
Nathaniel \V. Taylor, pastor of the First Congregational
Church at Xew Haven, delegate of the Connecticut Bible
Society. He was a very eloquent preacher, but was re
garded by some of his contemporaries as a heretic. An
other member was Rev. Gardiner Spring, pastor of the
Brick Presbyterian Church in New York, then located
in Beekman Street. His ministry was remarkable for
its length and its power. He was pastor of the Brick
Church for sixty-three years. Mr. Spring had often crossed
swords with Dr. Taylor of New Haven, in a sharp con
troversy upon freedom of the will. Another battle-scarred
controversialist was Rev. Dr. Jedidiah Morse, pastor of the
First Congregational Church at Charlestown, Massachu
setts. It was only a few years after this Convention that
Dr. Morse, broken in health by brooding over the violence
of his theological opponents, had to resign his pastorate.
Next to him we may note Rev. Mr. Henshaw, a rising young
Episcopal minister, who afterwards became Bishop of
Rhode Island. Another man of distinction was Mr. Joseph
C. Hornblower of Newark, who later became Chief Justice
of New Jersey. Then there was Valentine Mott, the dis
tinguished surgeon, of whom Sir Astley Cooper said later
on, " He has performed more great operations than any
man living or who ever did live." He, too, represented the
Society of Friends. James Fenimore Cooper, the novelist,

i82i] SOME EMINENT MEN 23

was there as one of the delegates from Otsego County Bible
Society, tie was notable on account of his participation in
the work of that day, even if he had not afterwards gained
admiration as a teller of entrancing American stories. An
other delegate was a printer and publisher of Utica, New
York — Mr. William Williams, whose son, S. Wells Wil
liams, gained renown as a missionary, as a master of
Chinese, as a statesman, and later as President of the
American Bible Society. The originator of Sunday schools
in the state of New Jersey was there — Rev. Dr. John Mac-
Dowell, then pastor at Elizabethtown, New Jersey. The
delegate of the Westchester County Bible Society was Wil
liam Jay, Esq., son of the great statesman, John Jay, a
schoolmate and warm friend of James Fenimore Cooper,
and an eminent conchologist as well as statesman, who was
moved by his benevolent spirit to elaborate the first detailed
scheme for the arbitration of difficulties between nations.
Several of the Virginia Societies united in sending as their
delegate to the Convention the Rev. John II. Rice, a fervent
and powerful preacher, who three years later became
moderator of the Presbyterian General Assembly, and after
wards President of the Union Theological Seminary at
Hampden-Sidney. Another eminent educator in the great
Convention was the President of Union College, New York,
Rev. Dr. Eliphalet Nott, distinguished as pulpit orator, and
a most genial disciplinarian whose students always delighted
to tell of their encounters with his keen wit. But this list
must serve as a sample of the material making up this Con
vention. The names of all the members of the Convention
are given in another place, tor, as Bishop Eastburn of
Massachusetts said, some years later, u Let us not lose from
memory the instruments chosen by the Almighty for bless
ing in this work the land and the world."

Rev. Dr. Eliphalet Nott, President of Union College, was
called upon to offer prayer. In that earnest petition for the
guidance of the Holy Spirit were expressed the solemnity
of the moment and the yearnings of every heart in that
room. The solemn silence in the Convention was hardly
disturbed by the quiet questions and answers as the list of
delegates was made, and letters from other Bible Societies

24 ORGANISATION OF THE SOCIETY [1816-

not represented by delegates were read, expressing approval
of the general design of the meeting.

When the roll of delegates had been made up, the object
of the meeting was presented and freely discussed, not with
out divergences of view. Dr. Lyman Beecher wrote of the
Convention many years later : ' There was one moment
in our proceedings when things seemed to tangle and some
feeling began to rise. At that moment Dr. Mason rose
hastily and said: 'Mr. President, the Lord Jesus never
built a church but what the devil built a chapel close to it ;
and he is here now, this moment, in this room, with his
finger in the ink-horn not to write your constitution but to
blot it out.' ' The laughter caused by this sally dispelled
the storm, and the clear sun appeared again. To the
amazement of all present, these champions of denomina
tional competition stood at one point of view. In the after
noon when a resolution was presented that "it is expedient
to establish without delay a general Bible institution for the
circulation of the Holy Scriptures without note or com
ment," it was adopted without a dissenting vote.

The chairman of the Convention, Joshua M. Wallace of
New Jersey, could not control his emotion. His eyes filled
with tears, and he said, " Thank God ! Thank God ! " x Al
most hidden behind the crowd in the rear of the room sat
Samuel J. Mills, the man who had concentrated upon se
curing the organisation of a National Bible Society his great
executive power in exciting and combining minds for benev
olent work. When he saw that the day was won, a look of
heavenly delight spread over his countenance.2

The smiles exchanged between the members of the Con
vention showed that this unanimous action had drawn them
all closer together, like the members of an exploring party
when fr'om some Pisgah they have gained their first view
of a Promised Land. One thought was in every mind :
" It is the work of God ! "

These sixty men for the Master's sake set aside strong
personal preferences. Under divine guidance at a crisis in

1 Rev. Dr. Blythe of Kentucky at the loth Anniversary of the
American Bible Society.

2 Life of S. J. Mills by Rev. Gardiner Spring.

1821] CONSTITUTION OF THE SOCIETY 25

the national growth they had called into being an institu
tion suited to the emergency, which would provide the na
tion with Scriptures and make many souls glad forever.

Having appointed a committee to prepare a draft of a
constitution, and also an address to the public, the Conven
tion adjourned to Friday, May 10, at n A. M. ; and its mem
bers joyfully congratulated each other, giving glory to God
like the man who received his sight at the word of Jesus.

When the Convention met on the loth, according to ad
journment, the Committee, composed of Rev. Dr. Eliphalet
Nott of Union College, Samuel Bayard of Princeton, New
Jersey, Rev. Dr. John M. Mason of New York, Rev. Simon
Wilmer of New Jersey, Rev. David Jones of Pennsylvania,
Rev. Lyman Beecher of Connecticut, Charles Wright, Esq.,
of Long Island, Rev. John H. Rice of Virginia, Rev. Dr.
Jedidiah Morse of Massachusetts, William Jay, Esq., of
Westchester County, New York, and Rev. Dr. James Blythe
of Kentucky, presented its draft of a constitution. This
was read, discussed, considered paragraph by paragraph, and
unanimously adopted. It was a well-considered document
which has served its purpose (with some amendment, see
Appendix) as the years have gone by. It is here given in its
original form :

" i. This Society shall he known by the name of The
American Bible Society, of which the sole object shall be
to encourage a wider circulation of the Holy Scriptures
without note or comment. The only copies in the English
language to be circulated by the Society shall be of the ver
sion now in common use.

" 2. This Society shall add its endeavours to those em
ployed by other Societies, for circulating the Scriptures
throughout the United States and their territories ; and
shall furnish them with stereotype plates, or such other as
sistance as circumstances may require. This Society shall,
also, according to its ability, extend its influence to other
countries, whether Christian, Mohammedan, or Pagan.

" 3. All Bible Societies shall be allowed to purchase at
cost from this Society, Bibles for distribution within their
own districts. The members of all such Bible Societies as

26 ORGANISATION OF THE SOCIETY [1816-

shall agree to place their surplus revenue, after supplying
their own districts with Bibles, at the disposal of this So
ciety, shall be entitled to vote in all meetings of the Society;
and the officers of such Societies shall be ex officio directors
of this.

""4. Each subscriber of three dollars annually shall be a
member.

" 5. Each subscriber of thirty dollars at one time shall be
a member for life.

" 6. Each subscriber of fifteen dollars annually shall be a
Director.1

" 7. Each subscriber of one hundred and fifty dollars at
one time, or who shall, by one additional payment, increase
his original subscription to one hundred and fifty dollars
shall be a Director for life.

" 8. Directors shall be entitled to attend and vote at all
meetings of the Board of Managers.

" 9. A Board of Managers shall be appointed to conduct
the business of the Society, consisting of thirty-six laymen,
of whom twenty-four shall reside in the city of New York
or its vicinity. One-fourth part of the whole number shall
go out of office at the expiration of each year, but shall be
re-eligible.

" Every Minister of the Gospel, who is a member of the
Society, shall be entitled to meet and vote with the Board of
Managers, and be possessed of the same powers as a Man
ager himself.

" The Managers shall appoint all officers and call special
meetings, and fill such vacancies as may occur by death or
otherwise, in their own Board.

" 10. Each member of the Society shall be entitled, under
the direction of the Board of Managers, to purchase Bibles
and Testaments, at the Society's prices, which shall be as low
as possible.

" ii. The Annual Meetings of the Society shall be held
at New York or Philadelphia, at the option of the Society,
on the second Thursday of May in each year, when the

1 This article was rescinded in 1827, and the numbers of the re
maining Articles changed accordingly.

1821] ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE 27

Managers shall be chosen, the accounts presented, and the
proceedings of the foregoing year reported.

" 12. The President, Vice-Presidents, Treasurer and Sec
retaries for the time being, shall be considered, ex officio,
members of the Board of Managers.

" 13. At the general meetings of the Society and the meet
ings of the Managers, the President, or in his absence the
Vice-President first on the list then present; and in the ab
sence of all the Vice-Presidents, such members as shall be
appointed for that purpose shall preside at the meeting.

" 14. The Managers shall meet on the first Wednesday
in each month, or oftener, if necessary, at such place in the
city of New York as they shall from time to time ad
journ to.

" 15. The Managers shall have the power of appointing
such persons as have rendered essential services to the So
ciety, either Members for life, or Directors for life.

" 1 6. The whole minutes of every meeting shall be signed
by the Chairman.

" 17. No alteration shall be made to this Constitution, ex
cept by the Society at an annual meeting, on the recom
mendation of the Board of Managers."

The Committee also reported an address to the people of
the United States, which was approved by the Convention.
This was written by Rev. Dr. John Mitchell Mason, minister
of the Associate Reformed Church, and at the time of this
Convention provost of Columbia College ; an eminent leader
in all that related to education of the ministry, a notable
preacher, and an able orator on national occasions. In
this address Dr. Mason spoke of the extraordinary reaction
against a false philosophy widely taught in the eighteenth
century, and pointed out the wide-spread feeling of desire
on the part of American Christians to aid all that is holy
against all that is profane; the purest interest of the com
munity and the individual, against a conspiracy of darkness
and disaster; and the eagerness felt in many quarters to
claim a place in an age of Bibles to help the work of Chris
tian charity.

" Under such impressions," he said, " and with such views,

28 ORGANISATION OF THE SOCIETY [1816-

fathers, brothers, fellow-citizens, the American Bible Society
has been formed. Local feelings, party prejudices, sectarian
jealousies are excluded by its very nature. It is leagued in
that, and in that alone, which calls up every hallowed and
puts down every unhallowed principle : the dissemination of
the Scriptures in the received versions where they exist, and
in the most faithful where they may be required. In such a
work whatever is dignified, kind, venerable, true, has ample
scope ; while sectarian littleness and rivalries can find no
avenue of admission.''

After pointing out the great possibilities both at home and
abroad of a National Bible Society, the address urged the
people of the United States to take part in an enterprise of
such grandeur and glory, since it is not becoming that
Americans should hang back while the rest of Christendom
was awake and alert. He closed with the following stirring
appeal :

" Be it impressed on your souls that a contribution, saved
from even a cheap indulgence, may send a Bible to a deso
late family ; may become a radiating point of ' grace and
truth ' to a neighbourhood of error and vice ; and that a
number of such contributions, made at really no expense,
may illumine a large tract of country, and successive genera
tions of immortals, in that celestial knowledge which shall
secure their present and their future felicity.

" But whatever be the proportion between expectation
and experience, thus much is certain : We shall satisfy our
conviction of duty — we shall have the praise of high en
deavours — we shall minister to the blessedness of thou
sands, and tens of thousands, of whom we may never see
the faces, nor hear the names. We shall set forward a sys
tem of happiness which will go on with accelerated motion
and augmented vigour, after we shall have finished our
career; and confer upon our children, and our children's
children, the delight of seeing the wilderness turned into a
fruitful field, by the blessing of God upon that seed which
their fathers sowed, and themselves watered. In fine, we
shall do our part toward that expansion and intensity of
light divine which shall visit, in its progress, the palaces of
the great and the hamlets of the small until the whole ' earth

i82i] OFFICERS OF THE SOCIETY 29

be full of the knowledge of Jehovah, as the waters cover the
sea ! ' :

After having adopted the Constitution the Convention
chose thirty-six managers in conformity with its Ninth Ar
ticle. It then adjourned to meet May nth, sending notice
to the ne\vly elected members of the Board that they had
been chosen to be Managers of the American Bible So
ciety.1

The managers met in the City Hall on May nth and pro
ceeded to choose officers of the Society, as follows :

PRESIDENT :

Hon. Elias Boudinot of New Jersey

VICE-PRESIDENTS

Hon. John Jay of New York
Matthew Clarkson, Esq., of New York
Hon. Smith Thompson of New York
Hon. John Langdon of New Hampshire
Hon. Caleb Strong of Massachusetts
Hon. William Gray of Massachusetts
Hon. John C. Smith of Connecticut
Hon. Jonas Galusha of Vermont
Hon. William Jones of Rhode Island
Hon. Isaac Shelby of Kentucky
George Madison, Esq., of Kentucky
Hon. William Tilghman of Pennsylvania
Hon. Bushrod Washington of Virginia

1 The names of those chosen for the first Board of Managers
are as follows :

Henry Rutgers John R. B. Rodgers Rnfus King

John Bingham Dr. Peter Wilson Thomas Stokes

Richard Varick Jeremiah Evarts Joshns Sands

Thomas Farmer John Watts, M.D. George W'arner

Stephen Van Rensselaer Thomas Eddy De Witt Clinton

Samuel Boyd William Johnson John \Varder

George Suckley Ebenezer Burrill Samuel Bayard

Divie Bethune Andrew Gifford Duncan P. Campbell

William Bayard George Gosman John Aspinwall

Peter McCarty Thomas Carpenter Charles Wright

Thomas Shields John Cauldwell Cornelius Heyar

Robert Ralston Leonard Bleecker John Murray, Jr.

30 ORGANISATION OF THE SOCIETY [1816-1821

Hon. Charles C. Pinckney of South Carolina

Hon. William Gaston of North Carolina

Hon. Thomas Worthington of Ohio

Hon. Thomas Posey of Indiana

Hon. James Brown of Louisiana

John Bolton, Esq., of Georgia

Hon. Felix Grundy of Tennessee

Robert Oliver, Esq., of Maryland

Joseph Nourse,, Esq., of the District of Columbia

SECRETARY FOR FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE I

Rev. Dr. John M. Mason

SECRETARY FOR DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENCE:

Rev. J. B. Romeyn, D.D.,

TREASURER

Richard Varick, Esq.

A committee of the managers communicated information of
this choice to the Convention.

The Convention, having received notification that the or
ganisation of the new Society was now complete, adopted
a resolution by which the city of New York was fixed as the
place in which the first annual meeting of the American
.Bible Society should be held. The business being now
accomplished, the meeting was closed with prayer by Rev.
Mr. Wilmer, and the Convention was dissolved.

On Monday, the I3th of May, a ratification meeting was
held in the City Hall, the Mayor of the city of New York
presiding. After addresses by George Griffin, Esq., Wil
liam Jay, Esq., and Rev. Dr. Nott of Union College, a large
and enthusiastic audience adopted resolutions pledging sup
port to the Bible Society thus auspiciously set on its way.

CHAPTER V

FINDING ITS FEET

WHEN the Lord distinctly calls a man to His work, an
impression of unfitness and inability is the first response to
the call. Moses in Midian said unto the Lord, " Who am I
that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth
the children of Israel out of Egypt? " Gideon, when told to
save Israel from the Midianites, said, " O Lord, wherewith
shall I save Israel? Behold my family is poor in Manasseh,
and I am the least in my father's house." Yet, when con
vinced that the call was really from God Himself, each of
these men went in the might of faith in God, and accom
plished the work assigned to him.

Something of the same experience fell to the lot of the
officers and managers of the American Bible Society when
the Convention had dissolved and left them to do their best.
They had no doubt that the work assigned to them was
appointed by God Himself. The Convention had defined
the work, and chosen them to put it into execution. There
was no question at all of the greatness of the undertaking
committed to them. They must plan to supply the destitute
in a broad land with the written Word, and they must do it
without delay. The plan before the Convention con
templated results alone; methods and instruments of action
had to be found or invented. The Managers of the new
Society must furnish Bibles to clamorous ministers, needy
Sunday Schools, and destitute families in the distant wilder
ness ; jput they had neither printing press, money nor men to
carry books to the West. They were to offer the Bible to
French and Spanish among our own people; but the gift of
tongues was not theirs.'

When we look at the quality of the men upon whom
these heavy burdens were cast, we must acknowledge that

32 FINDING ITS FEET [1816-

they were well chosen for the work. The two secretaries,
Mason and Romeyn, were both pastors of great influence in
the city of New York, and both of them had served — one
as President, the other as Secretary — in the New York
Bible Society. Of the Board of Managers, ten had been
Managers of the New York Bible Society. It almost looked
as if the older Society had become merged in the new. The
Board of Managers of the American Bible Society included
Mr. Robert Ralston, one of the founders and later Presi
dent of the Philadelphia Bible Society, and Mr. Jeremiah
Evarts, Treasurer and afterwards Secretary of the Ameri
can Board of Missions. Richard Varick, chosen member
of the Board of Managers, but elected Treasurer of the
Society by the Managers at their first meeting, was one of
the Staff Officers and private secretary of General Washing
ton, acquainted with the hardships of the battle-field ; a man
of great business ability, warm heart, and earnest devo
tion to the advancement of piety. De Witt Clinton, a leader
in many great works in New York, was chosen Governor of
New York State while still a Manager of the Bible Society.
Divie Bethune, a life-long philanthropist, might be said to
be the first tract society of New York, since he had printed
and circulated at his own expense many thousands of tracts.
Henry Rutgers was another of the men of the Revolutionary
War, notable as a man of wealth ready to help every chari
table object. General Stephen Van Rensselaer commanded
the attack on Oueenstown in 1812, was a member of the
New York Legislature in 1816, later was Chancellor of New
York University, and founder of the Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute at Troy. These names are enough to show the
kind of men deemed necessary for the management of a So
ciety so high and so broad in aim as the American Bible
Society.

Nevertheless these men felt almost like the apostles to
whom Jesus Christ left the work of teaching all nations.
They were like a forlorn hope chosen for the last desperate
assault upon the stronghold of a mighty enemy. Diffi
culty was almost the only known feature of the duty which
was laid upon them. Their circumstances as they took up

i8.2i] ENTHUSIASTIC GOOD WILL 33

the work could hardly be more hopeless. Yet these men
were men of living piety ; they had one assurance of power :
He who directed that all people should be taught to observe
the things which He had commanded had said, " Lo, I am
with you alway." That promise was eternally valid.

The many expressions of enthusiastic good-will which
welcomed the new organisation were an encouragement.
The mere fact that an American Bible Society had been
organised was a surprise and a joy to the churches; a sur
prise, because federation of denominations for religious
work was unheard of save in some obscure corners of the
land; and a joy because such a federation seemed equal to
solving the problem of combatting ir religion in the newly
settled areas. It promised concentration of forces, system
atic and effective, for the salvation of America. The cor
respondence of the idea of such an enterprise with the
eternal purpose of God for the race makes the story of the
Bible Society hardly more than a study of the form by
which the divine will and purpose here expressed itself.

Everywhere the American Bible Society was hailed as
marking the commencement of a glorious era in the history
of the United States. The General Assembly of the Pres
byterian Church made immediate note of its appreciation
and good-will.1 The General Convention of the Baptist
Church before the year had passed away voted its approval
of the plan. During that first year also forty-three of the
local Bible Societies which were in existence before the Na
tional Society was organised, connected themselves with it
as Auxiliaries. More than forty Bible Societies were or
ganised as Auxiliaries of the American Bible Society dur
ing the same year. The New York Bible Society and the
Auxiliary New York Bible Society immediately became
Auxiliaries of the national Society, and emphasised that
relationship by presenting the American Bible Society with
stereotype plates of the English Bible which they jointly
owned, and with a thousand sets of sheets of the Bible in
French. Bible Societies in a number of different states had

1 Report on the state of religion approved by the Presbyterian
General Assembly, May, 1816.

34 FINDING ITS FEET [1816-

contributed to the cost of the plates and of the French
Bibles, so that there was a sort of propriety in these ma
terials being handed over to the National Society at once.
The Mayor of the city of New York, the Governors of the
New York Hospital, and later the New York Historical
Society became the hosts of the Board of Managers when
they sought a place in which to hold their meetings. Even
printers in the city offered to print free of charge any
circulars which the American Bible Society might wish to
send out in collecting money.

Inspiriting as was the welcome in the United States to
the new Bible Society, from Russia and from Germany
came similar expressions of good-will which thrilled like
miraculous messages from the unknown. Prince Galitzin,
President of the Russian Bible Society, wrote to Judge Wal
lace of New Jersey as President of the organising Conven
tion : " Notwithstanding the distance which separates us,
being approximated by the same spirit of unity and action,
we unanimously engage to exert ourselves for the same
cause of benevolence." The Secretaries of the Hamburg
and Altona Bible Society wrote to Bishop White of Penn
sylvania, President of the Philadelphia Bible Society (prob
ably supposing that the Philadelphia Society was merged in
the National Society) : " We have learned with great
satisfaction from the publications which have reached us,
that the loud voice of the friends of the Bible in America
has demanded and produced a union of the interests of all
the provincial Societies by the establishment of a national
Bible Society. However great the distance at which we
live from each other, we feel ourselves associated with you
in the blessed vocation of presenting those revered docu
ments upon which the faith of all Christians rests to such
of the children of men as do not possess them."

The British and Foreign Bible Society, the recognised
model and exemplar of the American Bible Society, outdid
these friends from the continent of Europe. It sent not
only a letter full of fraternal sentiments, but the promise
of a gift of twenty-two hundred dollars (five hundred
pounds), which was doubly acceptable at this juncture; espe-

1821] CONGRATULATIONS FROM BRITAIN 35

cially when it was arranged by correspondence that a part
of this donation should take the form of Bibles in French.

The letter which brought tidings of this generous gift was
an ideal exhibit of Christian brotherhood. Let it not be
forgotten that the correspondence was between men recently
opposed to each other in a national wrangle of exception
ally bitter partisanship. Commending the founders of the
American Bible Society for taking up a charitable scheme
the moment that peace had been signed, the Briton hails the
American as a true yokefellow, among the instruments ef
fectively to be used by our Lord Jesus Christ. The letter
was addressed to Dr. Boudinot, because the fulness of joy
had led him to write of the organisation of the American
Bible Society before the Secretary had time to prepare the
official notification. To Dr. Boudinot Mr. Owen wrote as
follows :

" My dear Sir:

" The Committee of the British and Foreign Bible Soci
ety have instructed me to offer you their warmest congratu
lations on the event of the formation of the American Bible
Society ; an event which they consider as truly auspicious,
and pregnant with consequences most advantageous to the
promotion of that great work in which the American Breth
ren and themselves are mutually engaged.

" To these congratulations, our Committee have added
a grant of five hundred pounds ; and they trust that both
will be acceptable as indications and pledges of that friendly
disposition which it is their desire to cultivate and manifest
towards every class and description of their transatlantic
fellow-labourers.

" The crisis at which the American Bible Society has been
formed, and the cordial unanimity which has reigned
throughout all the proceedings which led to its establish
ment, encourage the most sanguine hopes of its proving, in
the hand of God, a powerful auxiliary in the confederate
warfare which is now carrying on against ignorance and
sin. May those hopes be realised, and many new trophies
be added, through its instrumentality, to those triumphs

36 FINDING ITS FEET [1816-

which have already been reaped by the arms of our common
Redeemer.

" I am, my dear Sir,

" Very faithfully yours,

" JOHN OWEN,
" Secretary of the British and

Foreign Bible Society.
" Dr. Boudinot,

" President of the American Bible Society."

Pleasing expressions of admiration in this world of ours
are not rarely offset by unpleasing expressions of disap
proval. Great plans like those of the American Bible Soci
ety could hardly be viewed from all points with equal sat
isfaction. During the first five years Watchmen of Liberty
sprang up to denounce such a Society. " An institution,"
said they, " having hundreds of auxiliaries to extend its
grasp over the whole land must become a menace to free
government." The Conservator of Sects turned up with a
shrill outcry because, for holy uses like the publishing of
Scriptures, tainted money was being accepted from those
whom he could not regard as Christians. And then the
Supervisor of Public Morals added his protest against
shortsightedness which proposes to give to uneducated peo
ple a book like the Holy Bible, without note or comment.
Good Bishop Hobart of Albany had already drawn the
keen weapons of controversy more than once against Sec
retary John Mitchell Mason, upon the question of the Epis
copacy. It was hardly a surprise, therefore, when upon
the publication of Dr. Mason's address to the people, he
took opportunity by a letter to the New York Herald (May
13, 1816), in a dignified though voluble manner to announce
his disapproval of a partnership of Episcopalians with other
denominations in religious work, and especially in dissem
ination of the Bible, which he regarded as a prerogative of
his church and clergy. He used arguments which in Eng
land had already been turned against the British and For
eign Bible Society : There was no necessity for the Soci
ety ; the idea of maintaining a National Society was vision
ary ; there was no perfect accord among the existing Bible

1821] A NATIONAL SOCIETY 37

Societies in favour of the new one, etc., etc. It so happened
that Bishop White of Pennsylvania, President of the Phila
delphia Bible Society, was committed to the very interde
nominational principle attacked by Bishop Hobart. Indeed,
in an address at Philadelphia, he had praised what Bishop
Hobart condemned. " It has been thought," he said, " an
incidental advantage arising from Bible Societies that by
combining persons of different religious denominations, they
have the effect of promoting unity of affection under irre
concilable differences of opinion. The British and For
eign Bible Society set off on the fundamental principle of
avoiding whatever could bring such diversity into view.
They professed to deliver the book of God without note or
comment. The Societies instituted in America have trod
den in their steps. While this plan shall be pursued, there
can be no dissatisfaction on account of interfering opinions
or modes of worship. Is it possible that such a course can
be persevered in without contributing to all the charities of
life?"

Other men of his own church connected with the admin
istration of the American Bible Society made answer to
Bishop Hobart, but pamphlet succeeded pamphlet with no
harm and some advantage to the new Society. William
Jay said in 1817: "The Society must engage in no con
troversy. She must know no enemy ; her sphere is one of
love and harmony. She ought not even to ask her friends
to defend her cause. Let her distribute her Constitution and
the Report of her proceedings and let these be her only
answers to the calumnies and falsehoods of her ene
mies. ... To answer would begin a long controversy. No
middle course can be taken." 1

If any one would now read the documents of this dis
cussion he must needs force himself through material
enough to fill a volume of considerable size. More impor
tant matters have prior demands upon the space allotted to
this story of the Society.

Strong men of affairs, like the Board of Managers —
men whose abilities had weighed in the making of the Re-

1 Letter of May I, 1817, in archives of the American Bible Society.

38 FINDING ITS FEET [1816-

public ; men by vote of the people now connected with great
enterprises of National development, whose business apti
tude was already building up a commerce between the con
tinents ; men soberly resolved that the new Bible Society,
without delay, should do effective work, were not disturbed
by the criticisms of suspicion or ignorance. The well-
known proverb of the Arabs, " The dog barks, but the cara
van goes on," makes the stately march of camels over the
sands a type of any enterprise so great that it can be care
less of small obstacles. The desk of the Domestic Secre
tary was quickly clogged with proposals, advice, demands,
and entreaties. A policy must be framed for securing and
well utilising a steady supply of Bibles ; for gaining the
support of Auxiliaries wholly devoted like themselves ; and
for filling the empty treasure-chest. Managers and Execu
tive Officers must proceed almost like the blind man who
feels with his staff before he plants his foot ; yet they must
proceed.

The bearing of these men during those years harmonised
entirely with that of President Boudinot, as he formally
accepted the office of President of the Bible Society. His
acceptance addressed to Secretary Romeyn was a letter of
which the spirit is revealed in the following extract :

" I am not ashamed to confess that I accept of the ap
pointment of President of the American Bible Society as
the greatest honour that could have been conferred on me
this side of the grave.

" I am so convinced that the whole of this business is the
work of God Himself, by His Holy Spirit, that even hoping
against hope, I am encouraged to press on through good
report and evil report, to accomplish His will on earth as it
is in Heaven.

" So apparent is the hand of God in thus disposing the
hearts of so many men, so diversified in their sentiments as
to religious matters of minor importance, and uniting them
as a band of brothers in this grand object; that even Infi
dels are compelled to say, it is the work of the Lord, and it
is wonderful in our eyes ! — In vain is the opposition of
man : as well might he attempt to arrest ' the arm of Om
nipotence, or fix a barrier around the throne of God.' Hav-

1821] A DONATION FROM DR. BOUDINOT 39

ing this confidence, let us go on and we shall prosper." !
This hearty assurance of a noble future for the Society Dr.
Boudinot emphasised by a splendid donation of $10,000.

1 Letter of Boudinot, June 5, 1816, in the first report of the
American Bible Society, p. 38.

CHAPTER VI

THE AUXILIARY THEORY

THE American Bible Society when formed was given a
free hand and thrown as fully upon its own initiative as is
a missionary landing on a foreign and forbidding coast. On
coming into practical touch with the details of the enter
prise placed in their hands the Board of Managers hastily
looked about for helpers. The undertaking was vast ; the
burden of responsibility for it was immeasurable. From
Canada to the Gulf the eyes of the Board must see the
needy. From the midst of nine million people those with
out Bibles must be sought out if these destitute ones were
to be supplied with the Book which teaches discrimination
between the bitter and the sweet plan of life. The leader
of a military campaign of equal magnitude has but to com
mand in order to mass his forces. The Managers of the
Bible Society could do no more than plead for helpers.

The plan of the Board for finding and supplying the des
titute in twenty States was to raise up Auxiliary Bible Soci
eties in every part of the country. The foundation of the
financial scheme of the Society, also, was the theory of
Auxiliary Societies. These would collect contributions in
pennies from those who deal in pennies, and in gold from
those whose hoard is gold. Such Auxiliary Societies in
every county with branches in every township could con
centrate upon support of this noble, inspiring enterprise the
attention of individuals everywhere with their interest, their
prayers and their gifts.

The theory of Auxiliary Societies rooted among the peo
ple, having a near view of their needs, distributing Scrip
tures with deliberate judgment, and winning the support of
rich and poor, came from the British and Foreign Bible
Society. The system as developed in Great Britain did not

1816-1821] BRITISH AUXILIARIES 41

originate with the Bible Society. In fact it had become a
success before the British Society took much notice of it.
The enterprise of supplying the poor with Scriptures was
so sensible and yet so novel that Christians in widely sepa
rated districts took up the work. Bibles and Testaments
were gladly supplied to the poor of their immediate vicinity
by local groups or associations of Christians. The members
of these associations contributed what they could and col
lected from others money with which to buy Bibles from
the British and Foreign Bible Society. A notable feature
of the plan grew out of the wish to participate in the grand
work of the British Society in foreign lands. One-half of
the money collected in various ways was sent to the British
and Foreign Bible Society as a donation for its general
work; the other half being used for the purchase of Scrip
tures and any local expenses of the association. Scriptures
were given gratuitously to the very poor ; but in order to
make the funds of the association go as far as possible, both
Bibles and Testaments were often sold on the instalment
plan. For the Bibles which they wished to have even the
very poor were asked to pay each week, until the price was
paid up, a few pence.

This Auxiliary plan in Great Britain grew up of itself,
we might say, like any herb of the field. Warm Christian
love was the sun which nourished it and its fruit was so at
tractive that the Committee of the British and Foreign
Bible Society took steps to encourage the formation of such
Auxiliary Societies. The local Bible Associations counted
it a high honour to be recognised as Auxiliaries in so great
a work. They naturally had no control over the affairs of
the great Bible Society, while that Society exercised an in
fluence amounting to control over all the Auxiliaries. In
a snug little territory like the British Islands it was easy to
sustain the interest of members of the local Societies by
printed notes from the wonderful story of the great Society
and by visits, meetings, and stirring appeals from delegations
sent out. For years this Auxiliary system has been one
of the largest single sources of income for the British So
ciety.

A very different basis had the Auxiliary system as trans-

42 THE AUXILIARY THEORY [1816-

planted to the United States. In the first place the point
of view taken by the Auxiliaries toward the general Soci
ety was different. Since the local Bible Societies regarded
the American Bible Society as their creation, in the man
agement of the national Society, by vote of their officers
in the Annual Meetings, all Auxiliaries had a certain meas
ure of control while the national Society had no control
whatever over the Auxiliaries. The Board of Managers
recognised in the Auxiliary system a telling instrument for
collecting money, but no plan of systematic collections had
been worked out, and no fixed proportion of the money col
lected was insured to the national Society. Auxiliaries
were to pay to it whatever was left from their revenues
after supplying the needs of their own fields. The Auxil
iary Societies would profit by the aid of the general Society
in the work of distribution, and whatever they might or
might not contribute as donations, they could always buy
books at the mere cost of production. At the same time
there were reasons which might deter the existing Bible
Societies from becoming Auxiliaries to the American Bible
Society. Their situation was somewhat like that of promi
nent social leaders who have been instrumental in the es
tablishment of a college in a country town, but who find
that the great institution of learning must sooner or later
outrank in prominence and power the generous notables who
encouraged its establishment.

The Board of Managers vigorously urged the formation
of Auxiliary Bible Societies in all parts of the country.
Not only did it show that an Auxiliary was necessary in
every county ; it asked that branches might be formed in
all the townships. Women were reminded that the British
Society received considerable sums from Women's Associa
tions which collected a penny or two here, and sixpence
there. They could do the same effective work if they would
only organise Bible Associations.

One point of difficulty very soon came to light. The
mails brought to the Secretaries of the Society letters from
different local Bible Societies in rapid succession announc
ing their purpose to be Auxiliaries of the American Bible
Society; some sending donations and some asking grants

i82i] AUXILIARY MEANS HELPER 43

to supply pressing needs. It was quite evident that many
good people confused the idea of co-operating with the Na
tional Society by sympathy and good will, with that of sys
tematically labouring as helpers to extend its great work.
They supposed that a vote of the local Society was all that
was required to establish the Auxiliary relation. The point
of view of the Board of Managers, however, was far from
this. It became necessary in October, 1818, to issue a note
explaining that no Bible Society can become Auxiliary to
the American Bible Society without a special vote of recog
nition on the part of the Board of Managers. In this con
nection the Board gave its interpretation of the third article
of the Constitution; the essential part of the statement being
that no Society can be recognised as an Auxiliary to the
American Bible Society until it shall have officially com
municated to the Board that its sole object is to promote
the circulation of the Holy Scriptures without note or com
ment, and that it will place its surplus revenue, after sup
plying its own district with Scriptures, at the disposal of
the American Bible Society as long as it shall remain thus
connected with it.

A lesser point of the duties of Auxiliaries had already
been decided by the Board in 1817 when the Kentu'cky Bible
Society made application for a set of stereotype plates, ex
plaining that they wished to print Scriptures for all the
Western States. The Board then notified Auxiliaries in a
general statement that an Auxiliary Society cannot, at its
own expense, distribute Bibles beyond the limits of its own
district. Otherwise the local Society will lose its character
as a helper of the national Society, since it will never have
any surplus funds to transmit to the general treasury ; trans
mission of such surplus funds being an essential part of the
duties of an Auxiliary. Lest the constitutional limitations
of the Auxiliary's activities should in this case limit the use
made of the plates loaned to the Kentucky Bible Society,
the Managers stated that the American Bible Society might,
if necessary, have books for other States printed at its ex
pense at the Kentucky press.

These conditions of the Auxiliary relationship had al
ready been explained to many Societies in private cor-

44 THE AUXILIARY THEORY [1816-

respondence; and to remove all doubts about the sympa
thies of the Board of Managers, in 1817 it announced to all
Bible Societies that, of course, they were at liberty to with
draw from the Auxiliary relationship if they chose to do
so. When the matter became thoroughly understood there
was no longer question as to the intent of the Constitution.
The line was clearly marked between Auxiliary Bible Socie
ties who are recognised helpers of the national Society and
other Bible Societies, which, like that in Philadelphia, vol
untarily co-operated with the national Society although not
organically connected with it.

An utterance of the Auxiliary New York Bible Society
in its third Annual Report (1816) showed its hearty ac
ceptance of this early interpretation of the Auxiliary rela
tionship. ' There are cases where it is more honourable
as well as more dutiful to pay tribute than it is to claim
the sceptre. . . . Feeling as we do upon this subject (the
organisation of the American Bible Society) we cannot, at
a time like the present, suppress the emotions of our joy
and congratulations. . . . To that Society you have become
tributary by profession. Let not your Auxiliary character
be confined to the name. Subordinate duties are as certain
and as urgent as those of a higher order which depend upon
them." 1

Another difficulty appeared when some of the Auxiliary
Societies were unable to understand why, when they bought
and paid for books, they were not helpers of the National
Society. Why should they be asked to send other money
for the general work? It had to be explained quite often
and at some length that buying books from the general de
pository is merely replenishing a continually exhausted
stock. The money received from sales simply restored the
Treasury to the position in which it was before the books
were sold. Only by gifts dedicated to the general work of
the Society could an Auxiliary be a helper and not a mere
dependent. A reservoir must be fed by streams larger than

1 This Society was announcing its new condition as auxiliary to

the A. B. S. See Third Annual Report of Auxiliary New York

Bible Society quoted in the first Annual Report of the American
Bible Society, p. 54.

1821] UNION COUNTS IN BIBLE WORK 45

those flowing from it, if it is to collect water for other dis
tricts.

In 1819 while the Board was urgently calling upon the
people all over the country to form Auxiliary Bible Socie
ties, it received an impression from a friendly letter that
the Philadelphia Bible Society might at last consent to be
come Auxiliary to the national Society. Realising that the
oldest society in the United States must naturally value
highly its inclependent existence, the Society had adopted an
addition to the Constitution (iQth Article), permitting the
Board to make special terms of recognition as Auxiliaries
for any Society formed earlier which had commenced pub
lishing Scriptures before the American Bible Society was
organised.

A statement of the Board issued at this time shows its
views : " The Managers are anxious to see an entire union
of the Bible interest in this country ; believing that such a
union would do honour to the pious and the benevolent in
our land; that it \vould prevent all injurious interference in
the great work ; that it would secure a larger amount of
gifts in aid of that work ; that the exertions, which all might
make together, would be greater, more economical, and
more vigorous, than can be made in a separate state ; and
that the consequence of combined efforts would be a meas
ure of success, probably much larger, and certainly much
more striking and impressive, than that which would at
tend disunited labours. With these views and opinions,
measures have been adopted by the Managers. They wait
patiently for the result. Should it be favourable, the Man
agers will be highly gratified, and will rejoice in the ac
complishment of an object so desirable as a complete con
federacy of the Bible cause in our country. Yet should the
Societies to which the nineteenth article of the Constitution
applies, and the other Societies in the United States which
are not Auxiliaries, deem it expedient for them to remain
unconnected with the national Society, the Managers will
continue to regard them not with jealousy, but with love,
and will always be anxious for their prosperity and their
widespread usefulness." x

1 Report of the A. B. S., 1820.

46 THE AUXILIARY THEORY [1816-

The hope of the Managers respecting the willingness of the
Philadelphia Society to come into a closer relationship was
dashed. The Philadelphia Bible Society expressed in the
kindest terms its inability to consider it conducive to the
general interests of the Bible cause to be at present so con
nected with the American Bible Society as to become an
Auxiliary. At the same time its Board expressed its will
ingness to co-operate with their brethren of the American
Bible Society in any plans which may be considered useful
to the advance of the object for which both were labouring.
These expressions of good will were not empty words. The
Philadelphia Society rendered financial and other aid to the
national Society repeatedly during the next twenty years.
In 1840 it took the step of formally becoming Auxiliary to
the American Bible Society.

The Auxiliary system which worked so well in Great
Britain encountered many difficulties due to the wide ex
panses of the United States territory. These Societies must
be left very much to their independent initiative since the
interminable American distances and the hardships of travel
would make frequent visits from Secretaries or other dele
gates of the national Society difficult, and in some cases
impossible.

During the first five experimental years many Auxiliaries
were a constant source of anxiety to the Board of Man
agers. Numbers of local Societies entered the ranks as
formal helpers without a chance of maintaining work in
their own fields. Their calls for help were unceasing and
embarrassing. Money for the general work contributed by
strong and active Auxiliaries was absorbed in keeping alive
the anaemic ones. At times, it is true, sparseness of the
population was a cause of these disappointing results.
Sometimes it was the depression of the local currency, some
times small calamities peculiar to a new country, or some
times even the appearance of other scheme? of missionary
benevolence. Yet in those early days the Board had to ad
mit many times that some Auxiliaries were constitutionally
inactive and some deliberately chose to be dependent. It
early became clear that the conditions of a truly helpful
Auxiliary system are not easy to fulfil. If Auxiliaries es-

1821] WEAKNESS OF THE SYSTEM 47

tablished in the first heat of enthusiasm should maintain the
passion to win souls, and if such Societies should never be
come physically too feeble for active life, the Auxiliary sys
tem would not be a drag upon the national Society, but
would prove permanently as efficient as it was praiseworthy.

At the end of the fifth year of the Society, three hundred
and one Auxiliaries were in existence. They had paid into
the Treasury of the Society $39,360.90 as donations, be
sides what they paid for books.

Great sums have since been paid into the Treasury for
the worldwide work by Auxiliary Societies. Many thou
sand volumes of Scripture have been taken by them to the
destitute. Thousands of our people owe their religious
awakening to their efforts. Some of the most important
and fruitful measures adopted by the American Bible So
ciety originated with a suggestion from one or another Aux
iliary Society. Yet, as will be seen later on, a territory as
vast and as sparsely inhabited as that of the United States
in the first half of the nineteenth century was not quite
suited to the success of the Auxiliary idea so hopefully im
ported from England.

SECOND PERIOD 1821-1832
CHAPTER VII

EARLY EXPERIMENTS

A LARGE movement of population marked for Americans
the close of the second decade of the nineteenth century.
Thousands of settlers moved into the country west of the
Alleghanies. During the first five years of the existence of
the American Bible Society immigrants from Europe ar
rived at the average rate of ten thousand each year. In
diana, Mississippi, Illinois, Maine, and Missouri were ad
mitted to the Union as States. Florida was given up to
the United States by Spain, and a quiet feeling of well-
being prevailed throughout the land. In South America the
establishment of independent republics which had com
menced during the Napoleonic Wars, continued with more
or less resistance from Spaniards and others interested in
the monarchical system. Mexico was in continual unrest.
In our land the war with the Seminole Indians blazed out
and died away, only to flare up again ; questions of tariff
disturbed different sections of the country, and the debates
concerning slavery foreshadowed their growth in bitterness ;
but on the whole there was throughout the country a feel
ing of steady prosperity.

Astonishment at the growth of the population was ex
pressed on every hand. John C. Calhoun, writing in 1816,
said : " We are great and rapidly, I had almost said fear
fully, growing. Good roads and canals will do much to
unite us." With this growth in the population throbbing
like a pulse which all could feel, it might seem shocking that
the Society formed to evangelise with Bibles the Western
regions of the country, almost as its first act, told applicants
that at present it would not supply any Bibles. The Amer
ican Bible Society was hardly a week old when disconcert
ing orders for books began to come in, many of them ac-

1821-1832] ISSUE OF BIBLES DELAYED 49

companied by money in payment. The Board, which was
hardly organised for business, had to fix a policy. Its per
plexity was like that of a man seeking a place to lodge who
has word that friends are coming to stay with him. It de
cided that the first use to which money contributions should
be applied was the acquirement of stereotype plates of the
Bible. Therefore it informed those who ordered Bibles
that money which came with orders for books would be sent
back to the donors, or handed over to one of the local Bible
Societies which had Bibles on hand.

A Bible Society without Bibles was as ineffective as a
railway without rolling stock ; to purchase Bibles in the
market would merely delay ownership of stereotype plates.
Offers of plates or for the making of them were hurriedly
presented by various firms, and after close scrutiny of such
proposals the Board ordered a contract to be made at ad
vantageous terms for six sets of stereotype plates of the
Bible ; three in octavo, and three in duodecimo, to be cast
as soon as possible. The plates would not be ready before
the spring of 1817. Meantime the importunate local Bible
Societies must do without Scriptures.

It was at this fateful moment that the New York Bible
Society and its Auxiliary, loyally ready to serve their new
leader in the common cause, came forward with their timely
gift of a complete set of stereotype plates in minion type.
In November, 1816, by the generosity of these Societies,
the American Bible Society was able to put forth its first
issue of ten thousand copies of the Englfsh Bible. In the
minds of the founders of the Society the plan of distribut
ing sets of stereotype plates among Auxiliary Societies
bulked largely. Probably it was suggested by the difficulty
of communication and transportation in 1816. In 1817 a
single set of plates was accordingly loaned to the Kentucky
Bible Society. An unexpected defect in the scheme star
tled the Board when Rev. Dr. Blythe of that Society in
quired whether a printing press would be sent with the
plates. Perhaps, too, no one had remembered that the
books, after being printed, would have to be bound. At all
events, after many vexatious delays, the Kentucky Bible
Society early in 1819 printed at Lexington two thousand

50 EARLY EXPERIMENTS [1821-

Bibles. The edition was disappointing as to paper, print
ing, binding and cost. No one was to blame. That coun
try was too young to undertake book publication. The
American Bible Society could supply Lexington well printed
and bound books from New York and pay the freight for
less than the cost of poor books printed there. After one
or two further trials the hope was given up of supplying the
West with Bibles by sending stereotype plates to Auxiliary
Societies.

Only by such an experience could all parties learn how
great a saving of cost is effected by printing very large edi
tions. The motive underlying the plan of supplying Auxil
iary Societies with stereotype plates was desire to relieve
them from the heavy cost of composition or of the purchase
of plates in cases where the local Society wished to print
Bibles for its own use. This benevolent purpose was not
lost to sight, although the earliest plan for accomplishing it
missed the mark. The Board of Managers, regarding the
cost of plates as an expense which the Constitution expects
the general Society to bear, left that element entirely out
of account in computing the price of books. It decided
that the cost of press work, paper and binding should make
up the selling price of Scriptures, adding, however, five per
cent to cover interest, insurance and the wear and tear of
plates. Bibles would be sold to Auxiliaries at cost, deduct
ing the five per cent, added for interest and wear and tear.
Through this decision Auxiliary Societies have not only
profited by the reduction of cost gained by printing very
large editions, but they have received their books during a
hundred years at a price considerably less than the actual
cost of producing them.

By the end of the first five years the Board had decided
that the cheaper forms of binding only would be used for
free grants of Scriptures. This plan was received with
murmurs to the effect that the Holy Bible ought to be nobly
bound, since otherwise the common people would think it
of little value. The decision was like the poor man's choice
to build his house of wood since he cannot afford stone, and
the policy of making cheap books for the supply of those

1832] INDISCRIMINATE DONATIONS 51

unable to pay much commended itself to the judgment of
the majority and later became the rule of the Society.

The most beneficent feature of Bible Societies was at
first universally assumed to be their power to make the
Word of God free to all. Under the then prevailing theory
an enterprise that asks money from beneficiaries is not
beneficent. But the human propensity to hold out the hand,
whenever benevolent gifts are in sight, was another of the
early discoveries of the Board. So one further step of cau
tious progress was the decision of the Board to discourage
indiscriminate free distribution of Scriptures. Much argu
ment was needed to convince contributors and beneficiaries
of the necessity for asking pay for Bibles from those who
could pay if they would. The rule, however, was main
tained without at all diminishing free grants to the really
needy, and resulted in profit, on the whole, to the self re
spect and the sincerity of those who received books from
the Society.

The path of the Board of Managers would sometime
open into a region where the relations of things could be
clearly seen. As yet it was as full of mysteries as the route
traced among the stars by a beginner in astronomy. It led
to the unforeseen at every step. Only after actually finding
strange tongues naturalised in several districts did it become
clear that Bibles in foreign languages must be provided for
the United States. The Board ordered from the British
and Foreign Bible Society plates of the French Bible in
1816; and it ordered Scriptures in German and in Gaelic
from London a year later, thereby causing an outburst of
joy from homesick Scottish emigrants. As early as the
end of 1817 it ordered a set of plates of the New Testament
in Spanish.

The Board had not yet contemplated beginning labours
in the foreign field when a Moravian missionary named
Dencke sent to it a manuscript translation of the Epistles
of St. John into the Delaware language. It was. a perturb
ing as well as an awe-inspiring object. After laborious
discovery of guarantees that the translation was accurate,
the Board gladly undertook to print an edition of these

52 EARLY EXPERIMENTS [1821-

Fpistles for the use of Indians speaking the Delaware.
This funned the first of a series of benefits derived by the
men of the forests from the organisation of a National So
ciety.

The example of the British and Foreign Bible Society
daily helped the new Society to stand upon its feet. The
Hoard of Managers concluded its first report by observing
that " God lias been pleased to make the people of Great
Britain the instrument of forming, maturing, cherishing,
and constantly and substantially aiding these (Bible) Soci
eties not only within their own territories, but throughout
the world. Greater honour has never been conferred upon
any people since the sceptre departed from Judah, and the
law giver from between I lis feet." * Britain was the
mother of most of the old Colonies. The British and For
eign Bible Society was a " Revered Parent" and it was also
an " Exemplar." It had explored many rough places in the
ways of Bible Society progress, and through this experience
it had fixed upon many well chosen methods.

The Committee to whom the New York Convention gave
the duty of drawing up a Constitution for the American
P.ible Society used that of the British and Foreign Bible
Society as a guide, modifying it to suit American condi
tions. The form of administration chosen for the Amer
ican Society closely followed the model in London. The
P.ritish Society had found that Auxiliary Societies could
canvass their fields, keep in close touch with the people,
supply needs, and also collect money in amounts that were
surprising. In fact such Societies already furnished a tan
gible part of the support of the British Society. The Amer
ican liible Society from its first active day counted as its
" auxiliaries " all Societies which agreed to place their sur
plus funds at its disposal. The British model was followed
again in the method adopted to furnish information to
friends of the American Bible Society. It issued for its
subscribers and the general public a little sheet called " Ex
tracts from Correspondence." Its Secretaries suggested
that the republication in America of these " Extracts "

1 Report of A. B. S. for 1817, p. 24.

1832] THE BRITISH SOCIETY COPIED 53

might be interesting to the people. Thereupon the Board
decided to issue a sheet of information called " Quarterly
Extracts." The idea and even the name of the Library
which was shortly established for the benefit of the literary
department of the Society was copied from that of the Brit
ish Society, which had early founded a " Biblical Library "
for the collection of versions of the Bible in various lan
guages, and of books useful to translators or interpreters
of the Bible. In debate an argument offered to the Board
as conclusive was often " The British Society has " or " has
not " done so and so.

There was no mere slavish imitation in this conformity
to the usages of that great and experienced pioneer; the
ways of wisdom are for universal use. Reasons for each
decision were carefully considered by the Board. When
the value of the various measures found practical by the
British and Foreign Society was clearly seen, their wisdom
was entitled to the homage of imitation by the new Society.
The Board, however, took no step that might impair the
independence of the American Bible Society. Within a
year or two occasion arose which might have caused mis
understanding in this respect.

The donation of twenty-two hundred dollars with which
the British and Foreign Bible Society emphasised its pleas
ure at the birth of the American Bible Society was in the
form of a credit in London to be drawn upon from New
York. Instead of drawing the money the Board ordered
books and stereotype plates from the British Society which
amounted altogether to thirty-five hundred and fifty dollars,
and it finally remitted thirteen hundred and fifty dollars to
London to close this account. In 1819 the British Society
made a free grant of five hundred German Bibles to the
American Bible Society and also sent out five hundred Span
ish Testaments designated for free distribution in Latin
America. At the same time its Directing Committee again
authorised the American Bible Society to draw upon its
Treasury for five hundred pounds as a donation. The
Treasury of the American Bible Society was not as empty
as the acceptance of the gift would imply. The Board felt
refusal to be unavoidable, but softened it by its gratitude for

54 EARLY EXPERIMENTS [1821-1832

the solicitude shown by the generous offer. The incident
was closed by a second letter from London assuring the
Board that notwithstanding its having declined the dona
tion, friendly feeling in that quarter was unchanged.

The Managers of the American Bible Society believed
with their whole heart that study of the Bible and obedience
to it would mean the building up of the nation ; while neglect
of this privilege by America would certainly lead to its
ruin. By the year 1821 the Board felt no longer hampered
by scarcity of books. It granted for the use of sailors in
the L'nited States Navy thirty-five hundred Bibles in 1820,
upon the request of the Secretary of the Navy. It was
ready to entertain every request from indigent Bible Socie
ties, or from destitute districts where no Bible Society had
yet been formed, for grants of Scriptures. This was really
a remarkable progress within five years for men who had to
feel their way step by step. But the members of the Board
did not dream that they had done any great thing. The
crossing of Jordan had been accomplished through glad
obedience to the command Go Eorward. So much of suc
cess was an earnest and manifestation of the divine guidance
that was to be theirs throughout the perplexities and strug
gles involved in the occupation of the Promised Land.

CHAPTER VIII

A WIDER OUTLOOK

SEVERAL state societies were engaged in home missionary
work before the formation of the American Bible Society,
but these were of small resources and they worked with
little systematic co-operation. In a general sense it may be
said that until the Erie Canal was opened in 1825 there
were no very efficient home missionary societies in the
United States. Before the development of great Home
Missionary Societies, the American Bible Society during sev
eral years had been engaged in its appointed task of win
ning men to Christ. It was putting the written word into
the hands of the blind that they might see, of the deaf that
they might hear and of the poor that they might know the
gospel, East, West, North and South, throughout the United
States. It, therefore, may be regarded as our first general
home missionary society.

Home and foreign missions, however, are among the
things which God has joined and man may not put asunder.
The strictly home missionary vision of the Bible Society al
most at the first moment revealed need of Scriptures in five
or six foreign languages within the limits of the United
States. The Society that was formed for the purpose of
increasing the circulation of the Bible wherever its arms
could reach, having obtained Scriptures in six languages
could not limit its sphere of vision by the boundaries of the
United States. French Scriptures, for instance, must be
sent not only to Louisiana but to poor neglected Canada,
and Spanish Scriptures not to the lower Mississippi alone
but over the border to Texas, then a part of New Spain
(Mexico), and even to the great South American Continent.

The reasons for undertaking Bible distribution in Latin
America were very well put in a letter on the subject pub-

56 A WIDER OUTLOOK [1821-

lishecl in Boston in June, 1816* In this letter occurs the
following passage: 'That it is the duty of Americans
to supply their neighbours with the Bible no arguments are
necessary to prove; and that New Spain (Mexico) and even
a part of South America have claims on our bounty is
equally clear." The writer then takes note of the fact that
many people say all such wants should be supplied by the
British and Foreign Bible Society, although that Society
has already an enormous burden in the supply of Europe
and Asia. He then continues: "Under these circum
stances shall we look to England to furnish even the in
habitants of South America with the Bible, much less any
part of Xorth America?"

As early as August, 1816, the Board of Managers took
under consideration the purchase of plates for printing
the Xew Testament in Spanish ; but it was not until a year
later that a commencement of the work was made by order
ing the stereotyped plates, which copied the best edition
published by the British and Foreign Bible Society. It was
about the same time that the Managers had before them
a report of the Louisiana Auxiliary Bible Society calling
attention to the situation : :' The population of the Spanish
provinces, commencing at the Isthmus of Darien and com
ing up to the United States, is not much short of ten mil
lions. Yet among this great multitude of professed Chris
tians a Spanish Bible could not probably be found after a
search of years." Five hundred Spanish Testaments sent
over by the British and Foreign Bible Society helped to
begin the supply of this need.

A surprising variety of channels were found for send
ing Spanish Scriptures into South America. The different
peoples in that continent had thrown off the Spanish yoke.
In Europe these peoples were still regarded as " Spanish
Colonies " but in America they were felt to be near kin
because the form of government set up in each case was re
publican. The Board assigned to a committee the duty
of discovering merchants or well-disposed sea captains go
ing to South America who would take with them Spanish

1 Panoplist, March, 1816, p. 123.

1832] GRANTS OF SPANISH SCRIPTURES 57

Scriptures. One of the grants made in 1819 was five hun
dred Spanish Testaments with special designation for use
in the public schools of Buenos Aires. They were gladly
received by the municipal officials who ordered them dis
tributed among the primary schools of the city.

Letters began to come frequently to the Society asking
for Spanish Scriptures. One of these from a merchant in
the Island of St. Croix spoke of the likelihood that the
New Testament would find ready circulation in Porto Rico,
and some Scriptures were sent to him in 1820. Some of
the books, at least, reached the Island and were gladly pur
chased. This was the earliest venture of the American
Bible Society in Porto Rico, where now the Bible is in the
hands of thousands.

A touching letter came to the Managers in New York
from a Spanish gentleman in one of the West Indies Islands.
He wrote: " A few days ago, being on board of an Ameri
can ship, I saw a Testament in the Spanish language. My
eagerness to obtain it led me to ask it of the supercargo.
It was the only one at his disposal and he could not part
with it. The Bible Society had presented it to him. I am
not certain whether you are a member of the Society or not,
but your general acquaintance may put you in possession of
some of these books which I beg you will send me. There
are none at all to be obtained here, and I know many who
would be proud to have one." Books were sent to this
gentleman, who wrote joyfully: "In three days all the
books were disposed of without the least effort of publicity,
and numerous applications have been made since by Span
iards and foreigners requesting the favour to send for
more."

The Secretaries soon had correspondents in different parts
of Latin America willing to undertake the distribution of
Scriptures. The American Consul in Valparaiso expressed
his willingness to aid in circulating Bibles. One of those
who asked and received grants was Mr. James Thomson,
Agent of the British and Foreign Bible Society. The Brit
ish and Foreign Bible Society wrote in 1821 : " We are
glad to see you desirous of working with us in South
America." This was pleasant but lacked perception, per-

58 A WIDER OUTLOOK [1821-

haps, of the aim of the American Bible Society to supply
the untouched fields in that continent. One of its early
grants of money for Bible translation was five hundred
dollars to help the translation of the Scriptures into Quechua,
the language of the proud Incas of Peru.

In the course of the summer of 1816 a member of the
Board of Managers, Mr. Jeremiah Evarts of Boston, who
was also an officer of the American Board of Missions,
wrote to beg aid for the Rev. Ferdinand Leo, a German re
siding in Paris, who was trying to bring out an edition of
the whole Bible according to the version of De Sacy. A
grant of five hundred dollars to Mr. Leo was the first ex
penditure for work in foreign lands. The money was sent
to Mr. S. V. S. Wilder, the well-known New York mer
chant then living in Paris, and wras received with great joy
by Mr. Leo. Mr. Wilder, in acknowledging receipt of this
donation, in the courtly phrases of the day wrote to Dr.
Mason : " Never, Sir, perhaps, was the hand of God more
conspicuous than in this act of the American Bible Society;
and generations yet unborn will undoubtedly profit by their
munificence."

I .ater some Americans residing in Paris called the at
tention of the Board to the newly formed Protestant Bible
Society of Paris with which Mr. S. V. S. Wilder \vas con
nected. This Society was formed in 1818 for the supply of
destitute Protestants. The Board gave it a cordial welcome,
and fraternal correspondence continued during several
years. After the revolution of 1830 had introduced some
religious liberty into France, the French and Foreign Bible
Society x was formed, in aid of which the Board granted
$2,000 in 1833.

At this time American missionaries were taking up work
abroad. A universal movement of enthusiasm followed the
appointent of foreign missionaries, both because of the en
lightenment which they would carry to pagan countries, and
because of the notable heroism involved in their going forth,
unable to imagine what was before them, to work for their
Master among races inhabiting the ends of the earth. The

1 Now called the Bible Society of France.

1832] WILL AID AMERICAN MISSIONS 59

departure of a band of missionaries for the Sandwich Is
lands in 1819 may be noted as causing a principle to emerge
whose logic has always ruled the Society ; namely, that
American missions everywhere have a right to claim help
from the American Bible Society.

In case of the missionaries for the Sandwich Islands the
Board of Managers sent to the American Board in Boston
" splendid " Bibles to be presented to the Kings of Owhyec
(Hawaii), and of one of the neighbouring Islands. Some
Sandwich Islanders who had been studying at a training
school in Connecticut were each furnished with a handsome
copy of the Bible and the American Board was presented
with two hundred Bibles and two hundred Testaments to be
distributed by the missionaries among Americans and Eu
ropeans drawn by commerce to the Islands. Ability to make
such gifts gladdened the hearts of the members of the
Board of Managers ; for missionaries who would sail half
around the world would use these books to make known- the
name of Jesus Christ to the Islanders now first receiving
worthy influences from Christian lands.

The American Board had a mission in the northern part
of the Island of Ceylon and, it having been represented
that the American missionaries could make good use of Eng
lish Scriptures in their schools and otherwise, the Board
made a grant of two hundred Bibles and two hundred Tes
taments for distribution by American missionaries, in Cey
lon. The enterprise of the American Colonisation Society
which cost Samuel J. Mills his life in 1818, was carried for
ward by others. The first body of American colonists
sailed for the coast of Africa in February, 1820. They
received a grant of Bibles for presentation to various func
tionaries in Sierra Leone who could use them, and two hun-
red and fifty volumes of Scripture, of which some were
Spanish and some French but the main portion English for
the use of the coloured colonists.

The Managers of the Society received letters of appeal
from Messrs. Carey, Marshman and Ward in Serampore,
begging for help in uie great work of printing which the
press in that place had undertaken. The New York Bible
Society a year or two before had sent a donation to these

60 A WIDER OUTLOOK [1821-1832

gentlemen in order to help them over the difficulties in which
they found themselves after the burning of the Serampore
press. The Board passed a vote expressing sympathy and
interest in the work of these missionaries, and sent each of
them a finely bound English Bible as a token of good will.
Later a thousand dollars was sent to Mr. Carey and his as
sociates to lighten their expenditures for translating and
printing the Scriptures in the various languages of India.
These little incidents are notable because from them
sprang most important results. They saved the Managers
of the American Bible Society from any nearsightedness due
to lack of exercise in long vision. When once the habit is
formed of seeing in some detail features of this world of
ours, their penetrating appeal, always in the minor key, is
sure to move the hearts of Christians. Through glimpses
of conditions abroad gained in its first five years the Ameri
can Bible Society imperceptibly became committed to the
principle that its work is American in origin but not in
limit. By such short steps impelled by faith and trust in
God many different denominations in different lands have
become engrossed in world evangelisation so that the knowl
edge of God may cover the earth.

CHAPTER IX

GROWTH OF AN ADMINISTRATIVE SYSTEM

THE warmth of President Boudinot's interest in the Bible
Society persisted notwithstanding physical weakness. But
his residence was in Burlington, New Jersey. In 1816 the
ordinary way for him to reach New York would be by pri
vate carriage or post-chaise. It was a ride of eight or nine
hours, which for a feeble man of seventy-seven was a seri
ous matter. So Dr. Boudinot presided at Annual Meetings
of the Society in 1818 and the three following years only;
his last public appearance being in 1821, the year of his
death. He did not share in the discussions about practical
difficulties in those early years. But his heart was with the
Board in this work. In July, 1816, he wrote to Dr. Romeyn
as follows : " We are extremely anxious to know how far
the glorious work in which we are engaged progresses to
ward maturity. . . . The time is short — we have delayed
until late in the eleventh hour — we have need of double
diligence. ... I hope you will not mistake my desires as
if I wished to proceed in this arduous business per saltern.
No ; I hope we shall, like wise master-builders directed by
the Spirit of God, go on steadily and firmly, laying a solid
foundation for this glorious superstructure to the praise
and glory of His Grace."

The Board of Managers needed all the counsel and sym
pathy which such a man could give. The members of the
Board had seen their duty as simple though difficult. They
had to raise money, to provide books, and to find helpers for
both lines of effort. But from their very first meeting they
began to perceive that these three simple duties dragged in
their train unforeseen complications and new problems.

One of these problems sprang from the quality of the
membership of the Board. Denominational sensitiveness

62 THE ADMINISTRATIVE SYSTEM [1821-

had to be considered at every step. In the absence of
President Boudinot the presiding officer at Board meetings
was General Clarkson, a member of the Episcopal Church
and a Vice-President of the Society. At the outset one of
the Secretaries was a Presbyterian and the other a minister
of the Reformed Dutch Church. Other denominations were
also present. If prayer, whether liturgical or extemporane
ous, were offered in a Board meeting some present could
not say " Amen."

When a committee prepared by-laws in August, 1816, the
first of these was as follows : ' The business of the Board
shall be commenced by reading such portion of the Scrip
tures as the presiding officer may direct." The delicacy of
the question of having prayers or other religious exercises
at Hoard meetings appeared in the report of the Westchester
County .Auxiliary Bible Society the next year. A remark
on its own experience illumines the situation : ' This union
(of Protestants) so consonant with that spirit of brotherly
love by which our Saviour declared his disciples should be
distinguished from others, has probably been strengthened
by the determination of the Society to discontinue the exer
cises of prayer and preaching at their meetings, and thereby
to avoid all interference with the various opinions of its
members respecting the forms of religious worship." Many
members of the Hoard felt that in the Lord's own work
prayer for guidance ought to be the first act in every meet
ing. The question came up in the Board again some years
later, when the Board of Managers formally reasserted the
principle of this first by-law ; namely, that there should be
no religious exercise besides the reading of a portion of
Scripture at the opening of a meeting of the Board of Man
agers.

In the meantime the same question had been raised from
a slightly different point of view in the Committee of the
British and Foreign Bible Society, and so much heat had
been generated that for a moment it seemed as if the prin
ciple of denominational federation were at stake. The
question was settled in England in the same way that it was
settled in America ; that is to say by adopting the rule that
no prayer should be offered at these meetings.

1832] REPORTS OF GREAT DESTITUTION 63

Another unexpected perplexity arose on hearing of people
who cannot read. Friends of the Bible expected their dif
ficulties to lie in the direction of providing Bibles. But in
Michigan Territory three-fourths of the French population
could not read, and they composed two-thirds of the whole
population of the region of Detroit. The Vermont Bible
Society pitied the French on the Canadian border and tried
to help them with Bibles. They found that very few of the
French Canadians of the border could read. Similar re
ports were sent in respecting the Spaniards of Louisiana.
The priest would let them read the Scio version of the Bible,
but few able to read could be found. What shall a Bible So
ciety do in such a case?

Reports of destitution flowed in from all quarters to the
Board of Managers. For instance, a man was troubled by
destitution in Maryland and threw off his burden for the
Managers to take up. Within five or six miles of a thriving
town he found thirteen families without the Bible. In all
the families there were one or more who could read. In
one place a father said that he had eight children all living
at home and no one of them could read. There was no
school to which they could go ; he himself could not read
nor could his parents. The man's wife, however, could
read. She said it would be her greatest comfort to read the
Bible and she was sure that her husband and children would
be glad to hear a chapter read every night and morning.
This family was said to be typical of hundreds of families
in that region. To supply one such family, the applicant
said, would be worth the expense and trouble of his whole
journey.

One reason for the failure of Auxiliaries to collect sup
port, as well as a hint of the customs of the people, is seen
in an appeal sent out in 1820 by an Auxiliary Bible Society.
" No man should ever say," declared the appeal, " that he
cannot contribute to Bible work who uses spirituous liquor.
The price of even a pint a week, of the cheapest kind, would
enable you to be a member of a Bible, Missionary and Edu
cation Society and to have something left for Sunday
School." 1

1 Annual Report, A. B. S., 1821, p. 122.

64 THE ADMINISTRATIVE SYSTEM [1821-

Of course these discouraging reports formed but a small
part of the many small matters brought to the attention
of the Hoard. In Virginia an essembly in an open field was
talking of forming a Bible Society. Six poorly dressed
women from the mountains came to the group with fruit
for sale. All of them said they would like to have Bibles,
but they could not buy for lack of money. The need of these
poor women thus brought actually before the eyes of those
lovers of the Bible led to instant action. A subscription
paper was passed around. Then and there they raised
money to send thirty or forty Bibles into the mountains
whence these women had come, so as to supply as many
poor families as possible. From one place in New Jersey
was reported interest among the women, who had formed
a little association to provide the poor with Bibles. A
widow with five children was advised not to subscribe to
the Association since she needed every cent she could earn.
" Indeed I shall," she answered, " I have got much com
fort from the Bible the Society gave me and I am going
to spend something to take it to others."

Other problems sprang like warriors fully armed from
the office desks. When the Hamburg-Altona Bible Society
wrote its congratulations upon the formation of the Ameri
can Bible Society, its Secretary sent the letter, enclosing some
printed matter, to Bishop White, President of the Philadel
phia Bible Society. The Bishop had to pay for this letter
from Hamburg $2.49 postage. Not long afterward the
Hoard petitioned Congress to exempt the correspondence
of the Society from payment of postage The fate of the
petition was to lie in a Congressional Committee's pigeon
hole until at a convenient season some one might call it up.

Before many months of 1816 had passed the Board of
Managers saw that whether the matters presented were
grave or trivial they could not sit continuously to read the
letters which poured in a stream into the hands of the Sec
retaries. It appointed a " Standing Committee " to act for
the Board during the intervals between its sessions. This
Committee settled a multitude of small matters quickly and
so secured for the Board time to study the large affairs.

But in the growth of any great undertaking the record

1832] A BURDEN OF SMALL AFFAIRS 65

of minute details which seems often drudgery is an essential
part of its story. The Rev. William Goodell, D.D., a trans
lator of the Bible into Turkish, once comforted a brother
missionary burdened by a multitude of such small affairs
by saying, " The disciples who went after that donkey at
Bethphage have become a part of the world's history be
cause the Lord had need of just that service."

Already the Secretary for Domestic Correspondence, Rev.
Dr. J. B. Romeyn, was at the point of being smothered un
der an avalanche of letters. He was pastor of an important
church whose interests might well occupy all his time. But
the Board of Managers claimed his strength for its inter
ests. A short experience revealed to members of the Board
the load which was being laid upon the Domestic Secretary
and at last a clerk was hired to do the more mechanical
part of the work. The sum of four hundred dollars a year
was given for this service. It was the first salary paid by
the American Bible Society to any one.

As the multitude of details increased the Board found it
necessary to help the Treasurer as well as the Secretary by
appointing a Recording Secretary and Accountant. Mr.
John Pintard was chosen for this office. A Huguenot in
origin, during the Revolutionary War he had care of British
prisoners under his kinsman, Dr. Boudinot. Later he had
an important influence in the purchase of " Louisiana "
from Napoleon. He was a man of considerable promi
nence in New York life, the first Sagamore of the Tammany
Society, the " father of Historical Societies," the treasurer
of the Sailors' Snug Harbour on Staten Island, and the au
thor, it is said, of the plan of streets and avenues in upper
New York City. Mr. Pintard was a man of earnest piety.
He was a member of the French Episcopal Church, for the
use of which he translated the Book of Common Prayer
into French.

Dr. Romeyn manfully struggled with his two lines of
duty which dragged at his heart and his nervous system.
In the third year of his self-sacrifice he resigned his office
as Secretary of Domestic Correspondence, explaining that
he must give his time wholly to his people. The Rev. James
Milnor, D.D., was then elected Secretary for Domestic Cor-

66 THE ADMINISTRATIVE SYSTEM [1821-

respondence. He had been educated for the law, had prac
tised his profession in Pennsylvania for some years, and had
represented his district in Congress in 1810. Afterwards
he felt called to enter the ministry. At the time of his
election as Secretary he was rector of St. George's Protes
tant Episcopal Church in New York, continuing in that posi
tion until his death. During twenty years he was a Sec
retary of the Bible Society. His grasp of the essentials of
any problem and his resource in difficult situations made
his services of great value to the young Society.

Rev. Dr. J. M. Mason, the Secretary for Foreign Cor
respondence, in 1820 was ordered away by his physician.
He therefore resigned his office. The Board of Managers
were sorry to lose his wise counsels, for in the Committee
room as well as in the Secretary's office Dr. Mason's serv
ices had been greatly valued. Upon this Dr. Milnor was
given the foreign correspondence in Dr. Mason's room, and
the Rev. S. S. Woodhull, a well-known and influential min
ister of the Dutch Reformed Church in Brooklyn, succeeded
to the post of Secretary of Domestic Correspondence. He
administered his office to the satisfaction of the Board of
Managers until 1825, when he became Professor of Pastoral
Theology at the Reformed Dutch Seminary at New Bruns
wick, New Jersey. He died in 1826.

Colonel Richard Varick, the Treasurer of the Society, like
Elias Boudinot and John Jay, was one of General Wash
ington's able men. His commanding presence and courtly
manners made him a striking figure in public gatherings.
He brought to his office great business ability. The choice
of Colonel Varick as Treasurer guaranteed the proper use
and the security of all the money placed in his care. His
tested efficiency and high character was a better protection
than bolts and bars for the cash of the American Bible So
ciety. In 1820, after four years of most careful service,
he resigned. He was succeeded as Treasurer by Mr. W.
W. Woolsey, an active and influential member of the Board
of Managers. Colonel Varick was then elected a Vice-
President and later became President of the Society.

After the presses began to furnish Bibles the Board dis
covered that a General Agent was needed to care for the

1832] THE SOCIETY'S HOUSE 67

books, supervise printers and binders, look to the provision
of paper, and see to the safety of stereotype plates and
other property of the American Bible Society. Mr. John
E. Caldwell was chosen General Agent of the Society in
February, 1818, and took a heavy burden from the Managers.
Mr. Caldwell had been Corresponding Secretary of the
New York Bible Society until he was chosen member of
the Board of Managers of the American Bible Society.
Since the General Agent would be required to give his whole
time to the work of the Bible Society, it was natural that
he should receive a salary and he was allowed twelve hun
dred dollars a year. Mr. Caldwell occupied this office for
a short time only. He died in 1820 and was succeeded by
Mr. John Nitchie.

The American Bible Society all this time had led a no
madic existence. It held its annual meetings commonly at
the City Hotel on Broadway near Thames Street. Its Sec
retaries were housed wherever they could find place. The
depository was a seven by nine room in Cedar Street ; then
a larger place on Cliff Street and later a room in Han
over Street. After careful consideration a site was bought,
plans were made and it was agreed that none of the money
contributed for Bible circulation should be used for build
ing the Society's house. In the spring of 1822, with ela
tion and with special gratitude to God, the friends of the
Bible Society attended the ceremony of laying the corner
stone, and in the following year the Managers were able to
hold their first meeting in their new quarters.

The Society's house was at number 115 Nassau Street,
between Ann and Beekman Streets. It had a front of
fifty feet on Nassau Street, and extended westward a little
more than one hundred feet, narrowing to about thirty feet
at the rear. The house was three stories high and had
a commodious basement. The Managers' Room was forty-
eight feet long and thirty wide. The depository contained
space for about one hundred thousand Bibles. The printer
with eleven hand presses, and the binder, both doing work
by contract for the Society, were given rooms for their
machinery. There was abundant storage room for paper
and materials purchased by the Society, as well as for keep-

68 THE ADMINISTRATIVE SYSTEM [1821-1832

ing the printed sheets ; and with the offices and the rooms
assigned to the committees, the American Bible Society was
at last housed under one roof in a place easily accessible,
to which public attention would be constantly drawn by the
name on the sign.

The Managers felt that the new depository furnished
facilities for a large business of manufacture of Scriptures.
They made known the fact, and at the same time called
upon friends of the Society to help by special contributions
to pay the cost of the house. This amounted to twenty-two
thousand, five hundred dollars, and the Board stated once
more that not one cent would be diverted from the purpose
for which it was given to the Society, so that money given
for Bible distribution should be wholly devoted to that ob
ject. About ten thousand dollars had been received for the
Building Fund before the house was occupied, and in 1826
the debt was paid off. The Society was thus left in pos
session of an establishment which in itself would be a means
of forwarding the circulation of Bibles.

Possession of a house gives to a young man who is com
mencing a new order of life an entirely new bearing and
outlook. He holds his head up. His thoughts become filled
with hope ; he almost feels that with such a point on which
he can stand he can conquer the whole world. Perhaps
something of this optimism took possession of the Managers
of the Bible Society. At all events in humble trust that
God had work for them to do, from this day in 1823 they
foresaw extension for the Society far beyond their early
visions.

CHAPTER X

SOME OF THE GREAT MEN

INFLUENCE is not a quality which one may pick up like a
dropped gem in the highway. In its most worthy sense it
is a result of noble character which comes to a man or
woman unawares and unsought. God has so constituted
his truth that when made concrete in any human life it be
comes a seed which lodges in the consciousness of others ;
germinates, grows, yields fruit many fold.

None may call it accident that the American Bible Society
has had the support and collaboration of great, famous and
intellectual men — servants of God who seemed to be di
vinely thrust into this service. The first President of the
Society, the Hon. Elias Boudinot, belonged to this class.
On the twenty-first of October, 1821, Dr. Boudinot passed
from this life. Mr. Samuel Bayard says that he was at
the deathbed and was perhaps the last to converse with him.
He reminded Dr. Boudinot of the amount and variety of
good which he had been able to effect during his life.
" The dying philanthropist at once turned from this view ;
his hopes rested on Jesus Christ alone. But when his agency
in establishing the American Bible Society, and its probable
benefit to the country and the world were brought to his
recollection he was silent but afterwards admitted the con
solation given him by this thought. It was soon after this
that raising his eyes to heaven he exclaimed: ' Lord Jesus
receive my spirit,' and passed away." l

He was notable for his services during the Revolutionary
War in close intimacy with General Washington. He was
great in Congress where he helped to knit together the
separate elements, of the young nation. He was honoured
as President of Congress, and he was sincere as a child in

1 Report of the loth Anniversary of the A. B. S., 1826.

70 SOME OF THE GREAT MEN [1821-

his devotion to Jesus Christ and his passionate desire to
ensure the use of the Bible by all the people for their worthy
development.

Dr. Boudinot was always thoughtful of need, and un
ostentatious in benevolences. In his will was a legacy of
two hundred dollars left to the New Jersey Bible Society,
the interest of which was to be devoted to supplying spec
tacles to the elderly poor, that they might not be deprived
of the comfort of Bible reading in their latter days. His
munificent gift of ten thousand dollars to the American
Bible Society on its formation has already been mentioned.
He gave one thousand dollars also to the special fund for
building the Society's house, and in his will he left four
thousand five hundred acres of land in Pennsylvania to be
held by trustees until sold, the proceeds to go to the Ameri
can Bible Society.

When Dr. Boudinot was requested by the Board of Man
agers to sit for his portrait, his natural shrinking from noisy
publicity showed itself in his letter of acceptance. " It
would be inconsistent," he wrote, " with that candour that
should strongly mark all my conduct, and a mere affectation
of humility not to confess the great pleasure afforded me
from so lively and delicate a manifestation of their unmer
ited respect and attention to me by such an impressive tes
timony of their liberal and generous construction of my
conduct. That I may not, therefore, appear callous to some
of the finest feelings of the human mind, I know not how
to refuse the request of your Board. To live in the mem
ory of those with whom I stand associated in a godlike work
must be a gratifying reflection, and ill would it become me
to withhold my concurrence to this effect; although I must
acknowledge that I feel some reluctance to a measure that
may prevent the circulation of a single copy of the Scrip
tures."

During ninety-five years the portrait referred to, a fine
work by Sully, has hung at the head of the Managers' room,
during more than sixty years in the present Bible House.

The Board of Managers in mentioning the evidence from
all parts of the country and even from other countries of"
the high estimate placed on the character of Dr. Boudinot,

1832] PRESIDENT JOHN JAY 71

adds : " The monument in his honour more durable than
brass is the American Bible Society ; and instead of merely
some friends and strangers reading his epitaph on his tomb
stone and thus learning or retaining the remembrance of his
name and his worth, there will be thousands on thousands
in successive ages blessing his memory and blessing God
on his account while they witness the usefulness, or experi
ence the benefits of the National institution."

In December, 1821, the Hon. John Jay, Vice-President,
was elected President of the American Bible Society ; a
worthy successor of Dr. Boudinot. Like him, Mr. Jay was
of Huguenot descent. His mother was a daughter of
Jacobus Van Cortlandt, so that two choice strains of blood
ran in his veins. He was an intimate friend of General
Washington and may be called very properly one of the
founders of the Republic. As a creator and moulder of
public opinion during the Revolution^ as a patriot and a
statesman he is often classed as next to Washington. He
was President of Congress, which sent him to Europe to
take part in negotiating the treaty with Great Britain at
the end of the Revolutionary War. Dr. Boudinot suc
ceeded him as President of Congress and signed the treaty.
By General Washington's appointment he became Chief
Justice of the United States, and though he withdrew from
that high office before long, during twenty-eight years he
served his country in many notable emergencies, and his
state as Chief Justice and Governor. The purity and eleva
tion of his principles of conduct made him eminent among
men. He had a very high sense of justice and of the
rights of others, and his religious feelings were deep. The
Bible he constantly studied. When informed in May, 1816,
of his election as Vice-President of the American Bible
Society he expressed great satisfaction and remarked in his
letter of acceptance, " The events and circumstances under
which such Societies have been established and multiplied,
in my opinion indicate an origin which makes it the duty
of all Christians to unite in giving them decided patronage
and zealous support." At this time he had been for some
years President of the Westchester County (New York)
Bible Society, thus living up to his principles.

72 SOME OF THE GREAT MEN [1821-

Six years later in the written address to the Annual Meet
ing of 'the Society after his election as President, Mr. Jay
returns to the thought of the divine origin of the Bible
Society movement. The following extract shows the
warmth of his feeling:

" Whence has it come to pass that Christian nations, who
for ages had regarded the welfare of heathens with indif
ference, and whose intercourse with them had uniformly
been regulated by the results of political, military and com
mercial calculations, have recently felt such new and un
precedented concern for the salvation of their souls, and
have simultaneously concurred in means and measures for
that purpose? Whence has it come to pass that so many
individuals of every profession and occupation, who in the
ordinary course of human affairs, confine their speculations,
resources and energies to the acquisition of temporal pros
perity for themselves and families, have become so ready
and solicitous to supply idolatrous strangers in remote re
gions, with the means of obtaining eternal felicity? Who
has ' opened their hearts to attend ' to such things ?

" It will be acknowledged that worldly wisdom is little
conversant with the transcendent affairs of that kingdom
which is not of this world ; and has neither ability to com
prehend, nor inclination to further them. To what ade
quate cause, therefore, can these extraordinary events be
attributed, but the wisdom that cometh from above?"

Mr. Jay was a confirmed invalid and was not able to
come from 1 Bedford to preside at any meeting of the Society.
Being opposed to any nominal office-holding, he resigned
in 1827, after his physicians had told him that there was
no hope of his being able to rise from his bed. He died in
1829.

Colonel Richard Varick was elected President of the So
ciety upon the resignation of Mr. Jay. At the time of this
election he was well past the proverbial three score years
and ten. He was strong and healthy, warm in his service
of the Bible Society of which during the four first critical
years he had been Treasurer. On retiring from this rather
arduous office he was elected a Vice-President of the So
ciety and presided at its meetings and those of the Board of

1832] THE ARDENT LIFE OE MILLS ENDS 73

Managers with grace and dignity. Colonel Yarick like his
two predecessors in the Presidential office was an intimate
friend of General Washington ; in fact he was a member of
Washington's military family. His energy of mind and his
military habit of punctuality made him a valuable officer.
He loved the \vork and the Society and he contributed fif
teen hundred dollars to the building of the Society's House.
His donations to the Society at various times amounted
to twice that sum. In civil life and in religious circles of
New York Colonel Yarick held a high rank. He served
as President until his death in 1831.

At the meetings of the Standing Committee and other
Committees of the Board Samuel J. Mills was often seen.
He was a Life Member of the Society and took pleasure in
its meetings. When he thought that the Managers were
not keen enough about providing Scriptures in Spanish,
suppressing himself in his usual fashion, he persuaded a
distinguished minister in the city to write urging an im
mediate provision of Spanish Scriptures. In July, 1816,
seeing the small success of the Board's strenuous efforts
to collect money, Mr. Mills offered to take up that work
for the Society, and in November he was appointed to col
lect funds and to organise Auxiliary Societies during six
months in all the Southern States. In 1817 Air. Mills was
interested with the author of " The Star Spangled Banner/'
Francis S. Key, who \vas a Vice-Presient of the American
Bible Society, in organising the American Colonisation So
ciety and the formation of a colony of freed slaves on the
African coast. They supposed as everybody did that blacks
were all one people. Mr. Mills was sent to Africa by that
Society to select a suitable region for a colony. After com
pleting this mission he embarked for home in 1818 while ill
with a fever contracted in the African jungles. A few
days later he died and his body was buried in the great
ocean. In this untimely fashion came to an end the ardent
life of Mills which had promised so much.

Mills was on fire with love for Christ and the Kingdom,
as though his lips had been touched with a live coal from
the altar of God. Dr. Boudinot, as a Christian, in his own
person made concrete the abstract idea of the Christian duty

74 SOME OF THE GREAT MEN [1821-1832

of combination to pass on the Bible to all who have it not.
Jay, renowned in the political world as one of the founders
of the Republic, gave weight to every statement or appeal
of the Society through his own love for the Bible and
eagerness to popularise its use. Varick differed from his
two predecessors in the office of President. He had not a
record of achievement to be compared with either. But as
having been a member of General Washington's staff this
plain, bluff soldier had influence also. In sheer amazement
at the combination of military renown and love for Jesus
Christ and His gospel many would stop and think and yield
to the Bible cause the homage of their support.

Either of these three 1 Residents, even had they not ren
dered precious services in the process of organising its work,
should be rated as of the highest value to the Bible Society
at this period because each commanded attention to what
ever enterprise he might support with his esteem and his
subscriptions. " Their sanction was a passport to public ap
proval."

In the Managers' room at the Bible House in New York
over the President's chair hangs the fine portrait of Dr.
Boudinot of which we have already spoken. On the right
of Dr. Boudinot as he sits at his table is another large oil
painting, an almost life size portrait of the intellectual giant
and master of expression, John Jay. Opposite Mr. Jay's
portrait, on the left of that of Dr. Boudinot, is a very fine
painting of Colonel Varick, erect, commanding, noble.
Among all the paintings which in that room bring to mind
the great men who have served God in this Society, the first
three were friends who stood together in the day of small
things. These seem to represent the time of special struggle
and the whole group of grand men who in the first quarter
of the ninteenth century, by the help of God, laid the foun
dations of the great work of the American Bible Society.

CHAPTER XI

LATIN AMERICA BETTER KNOWN

IN the steps by which the Bible became newly known in
the great continent, which with its adjacent islands is some
times called Latin America, eagerness of the people to read
the Scriptures weighed with the Board, leading it from in
terest to experiment and from experiment to a fixed policy.
In the first quarter of the nineteenth century Latin America
from the point of view of our own nation was a vast re
gion whose attractions were offset by many repulsive fea
tures. The mass of the people were illiterate ; political dis
turbances were not uncommon ; and, in any case, difficulties
of travel repelled those who would fain visit the interior
of any of the countries upon whose seaboard they had
landed.

Counteracting somewhat this feeling of repulsion was a
Christian sympathy with the Latin-American people ex
pressed by Rev. Dr. James Blythe of Lexington, at the tenth
Anniversary of the American Bible Society. He said :
" The American Bible Society stands connected in a peculiar
manner with South America. God has begun to do that im
mense country good of which the heart of every man in
this commonwealth is glad. Liberty now sheds her bless
ings where despotism forged her chains. It is especially
committed to this Society to be instrumental in giving that
long oppressed people those sacred writings which shall
enable them to perpetuate their new civil liberties and make
them, too, the freemen of the Lord." x

The sympathy thus expressed was accompanied by no
desire whatever to propagate a sect or interfere with re
ligious beliefs ; in the hearts of the members of the Bible

1 " Extracts from the Correspondence of the American Bible
Society," No. 47, August, 1826.

76 LATIN AMERICA BETTER KNOWN [1821-

Society it stirred a simple, earnest purpose to give these
people information through the Bible. In the words of
William Maxwell of Norfolk, Virginia, " God has chosen
this book to be the very wand of His power and wisdom;
to work all His mightiest and most moving miracles withal.
It is by this that lie wakes the dead and brings them back
from the gates of the prison house ; and it is by this that
He feeds the life which he has given, and cheers and
strengthens and consoles saints and wafts them away in the
spirit into paradise again." ^

As we have seen, the Society very early began to send
Scriptures in Spanish and later in Portuguese to different
parts of Latin America. No American missionaries had
yet undertaken to establish themselves in the southern con
tinent. As commercial correspondence with South Ameri
can countries increased, a number of persons were brought
to light in various seaports who were willing to help circu
late the Scriptures. In 1822 and 1823 letters from people
living in Buenos Aires, Chile and Peru brought news to the
Bible House of the readiness with which Scriptures could be
sold in those places. In Lima, Peru, a Mr. Lynch having
received from London five hundred Spanish Bibles and five
hundred Testaments in two days sold the whole of the
Bibles at three dollars apiece.

In Colombia and what is now Venezuela by 1827 the
Colombia Bible Society had been organised at Bogota; the
Caracas Bible Society had been organised ; both had put
themselves in communication with the British and Foreign
Bible Society and the American Bible Society ; eight hun
dred Spanish Bibles had been sent by the American Society
to Colombia ; Spanish Scriptures had been furnished mer
chants at Carthagena and Maracaibo which were readily
sold.

In Peru Mr. James Thomson, who was exploring the
country for the British and Foreign Bible Society, asked
and received from the American Bible Society a grant of
five hundred dollars to aid in translation work for the bene
fit of the Quechua Indians in Peru; and in 1825, when Rev.

1 Report of the loth Anniversary of the A. B. S, in " Extracts,"
No. 47, August, 1826.

1832] MEXICO AND CUBA BUY BIBLES 77

John C. Brigham exploring the country on behalf of the
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions
reached Lima, Peru, he found some boxes of Scriptures
from the American Society which had been left unopened
in that city by Mr. James Thomson. Mr. Brigham immedi
ately put the books in circulation and sent the Society
$195.75, proceeds of copies sold.

The correspondents of the Society at Valparaiso distrib
uted Scriptures from that centre to Arica, Coquimbo, Con-
cepcion, and other towns. In Mexico as early as 1824 the
Board of Managers considered the wisdom of opening an
agency; Mr. J. C. Brigham, however, wrote frequent letters
and served the Society almost as a regular Agent. In 1826
Messrs. Parrot and Wilson wrere selling Spanish Bibles in
Mexico City at two dollars and fifty cents and Testaments
at fifty cents apiece. Mr. Pearse at Metamoras wrote to
the Bible Society for a grant of Spanish Scriptures, saying
that there was a serious demand ; and the next year hav
ing received a grant he sold the whole consignment im
mediately for three hundred dollars. In 1827 Messrs. Par
rot and Wilson of Mexico City remitted $396.87 as the pro
ceeds of sales in Mexico City and the surrounding region.
In 1827 the British and Foreign Bible Society sent an agent
to reside in Mexico City, but this did not diminish the work
of the American Society in other parts of that region.

In the West Indies Scriptures were sent as opportunity
offered to many of the islands. In 1825 a shipment was
sent to some of the Roman Catholic clergy connected with
the Archbishop of Havana, Cuba. Shortly afterwards a
secretary of the Archdiocese, Don Justo Valez, acknowl
edged with thanks this gift from the Society and sent to the
Biblical Library in New York a gift of twenty-six volumes
of the writings of the Church Fathers. Upon this Don
Justo was made Life Director of the Society. In a cour
teous letter he responded that he could not accept the posi
tion of Life Director of the American Bible Society, but
that he would be very glad indeed to accept another con
signment of Scriptures for sale; and in 1827 he sent three
hundred dollars, proceeds of sales, to the Treasurer of the
Society.

78 LATIX AMERICA BETTER KNOWN [1821-

These experiences seemed to justify a statement of Mr.
Brigham that the people of the southern continent " are
ready to receive the Scriptures not only by hundreds and
by thousands, but by millions. I never yet met an indi
vidual, of any rank, in those countries who would not re
ceive one of these books with gratitude and often was will
ing to pay even a high price for it/' 1 This statement was
confirmed by the fact that Spanish Bibles purchased at the
Depository in New York for a dollar fifty were sold by
merchants in the City of Mexico for five dollars each at
wholesale, or eight fifty at retail.

The whole number of books sent into Latin America
in the year 1826 was only 3,967 volumes; but since they
were scattered extensively throughout the continent and on
the islands, the important possibilities of the work thus
begun are easily realised. The craving to lend a kindly
hand to the people who had cast off the Spanish rule grew
with knowledge of their wish to read the Bible. Every
possible channel of communication was used. American
Consuls, Naval officers, and merchants were appealed to
for help in taking the Bible to the different countries. Even
Mr. J. H. Poinsett, the South Carolinian whose long sojourn
in Mexico immortalised his name through the decorative
poinsettia of our greenhouses, was appealed to concerning
methods of Bible distribution in the country which he knew
so well.

Before long, however, the Board began to perceive that
this method of sending Bibles to Latin America by well-
meaning merchants and others left much to be desired.
The men volunteered service in Bible distribution in perfect
good faith, but they found it hard to press their own busi
ness and the business of the American Bible Society at the
same time. Priests could not understand why any man
should wish to distribute the Bible among the common peo
ple unless he had an ulterior purpose akin to proselyting.
Merchants who found themselves looked upon with sus
picion might easily reach the point of diminishing activity
in Bible circulation.

1 Report of the loth Anniversary of the American Bible Society,
rt Extracts," No. 47, August, 1826.

1832] MR. BRIGHAM'S REPORT 79

It was at this time that the Board of Managers realised
the wisdom, energy and devotion of the Rev. J. C. Brigham,
already mentioned as having rendered services to the Bible
Society in different parts of South America, where with
Mr. Parvin he was making explorations for the A. B. C.
F. M. Mr. Brigham graduated from Andover Theological
Seminary in 1822. Both in college and in the seminary he
had taken high honours. He was classmate and intimate
friend of Rev. Dr. Rufus Anderson of the American Board,
and of Rev. Dr. Hallock of the American Tract Society.
Almost as soon as Mr. Brigham graduated from the semi
nary he was sent to South America by the American Board
on an exploring expedition. The thoroughness of his pro
cedure is shown by the fact that his first step was to sit
down and learn the Spanish language. This once acquired
he pressed forward the purpose of his mission, journey
ing from Buenos Aires through the heart of the continent
to the Pacific coast in Chile, and returning to the United
States by way of Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, and Mex
ico.

Mr. Brigham's correspondence with the Secretaries of the
Society had so revealed his acquirements that within a
week after his return to Boston in 1826, he was asked to
deliver an address at the Society's tenth Annual Meeting.
In this address he pointed out the effects of the colonial
servitude from which the people of South America had suf
fered. " Of the means of information," he said, " they
were in great measure deprived. Some of the most valu
able books, particularly those of mental philosophy and
political science, were wholly kept from them. The Sacred
Scriptures were furnished in but small quantities and these
in the Latin tongue and confined to the clergy. Every
means which could be was employed by their tyrannical
masters to continue them in their state of vassalage. . . .
And what do we behold calculated to interest this noble
Society? We behold fifteen millions of human beings, be
ings professedly Christians, believing in revelation, baptised
in the name of the Trinity, and yet almost entirely without
the Bible. By the efforts of this Society and that of Eng
land they have, it is true, within a few years received seven

8o LATIN AMERICA BETTER KNOWN [1821-

or eight thousand copies of this Holy Book; but what are
these among so great a multitude?

" Throughout the long road from Buenos Aires to Chile
excepting a very few in Mendoza, not a solitary book of
God was found and I more than once presented copies to
aged priests tottering over the grave who told me they had
never before seen it in their native tongue. Coming down
the coast of Chile, Peru, Colombia, and Mexico a few copies
were met with in the large towns on the Pacific and were
useful ; but the great mass of the people are yet destitute
and generally in the interior they never saw, and in some
instances told me they never before knew that the Scrip
tures existed in their own language. Even in the capital of
Mexico, a city more populous and in some respects more
magnificent than this great metropolis (New York), I have
reason to believe there is not one Bible to two hundred fam
ilies ; and that the other great cities of that Republic are
still more destitute."

Mr. Brigham's address made a profound impression upon
his hearers. The Board of Managers at that time were
seeking an Assistant Secretary for the Society. A few
weeks before this an Assistant Secretary had been chosen,
Rev. Mr. Crane, missionary to the Tuscarora Indians, who
died a week after his appointment. To fill this vacancy
Mr. Brigham seemed to be exactly suited, and in the month
of July he received and accepted an appointment of As
sistant Secretary of the Bible Society ; only stipulating that
he should not be required to take up his duties until Sep
tember.

Mr. Brigham remained in service as Secretary of the So
ciety thirty-six years, until his death in 1862. In 1828 the
office of Assistant Secretary was abolished, and Mr. Brig-
ham was elected Secretary for Domestic Correspondence.
Five years later when the duties of the Secretary for
Foreign Correspondence had greatly increased, the distinc
tive titles of the Secretaries were suppressed and the four
Secretaries of the Society were thereafter styled Corre
sponding Secretaries.

When summoned to service in the Bible Society Mr. Brig-
ham was its youngest officer, being in his thirty-third year.

1832] OBJECTS OF SOCIETY ADVANCED 81

At Andover Theological Seminary when he was studying
there the fire of missionary devotion was at white heat.
Perhaps the effects of this experience, and certainly a con
trolling feature of his character, showed itself in 1828 when
he declared the salary of fifteen hundred dollars assigned
to him to be too large for his needs and persuaded the
Board of Managers to reduce it to twelve hundred. Energy
and resolute persistence were traits natural to his character
which had been developed by his experiences as an explorer
in his thousand mile journey across South America from
the Atlantic to the Pacific. Moreover, his four years' so
journ in the southern continent had given him mastery
of the Spanish language, knowledge of the needs of the
people, and personal acquaintance with many Americans and
others friendly to the Bible cause. The object and the
policy of the Bible Society toward Latin America would be
advanced by a man with such qualifications. In fact his
appearance on the scene at this moment seemed providential.
His after history, too, made his appointment worthy to be
listed among the occurrences which seemed to show that
the very hand of God was leading the Society.

About this time two gentlemen of rank from Colombia
visited New York and became interested in the Bible So
ciety. Of these two men Don Joaquin Mosquera was an ex-
president of Colombia, and General F. B. Santander an offi
cer of distinction. In 1832 each of these gentlemen ac
cepted office as Vice-Presidents of the Bible Society. The
appearance of their names in the roster of officers of the
Society foreshadowed the more cosmopolitan character
which, in the good providence of God, that Society was to
gain.

In those early days suspicion showed itself in the bear
ing of the Roman Catholic clergy toward distributors of the
Bible in Latin America. When the Society in 1820 sent
its first shipment of Scriptures to Buenos Aires the Secre
tary of the British and Foreign Bible Society, after gently
hinting that steps had already been taken by its committee
to do what was needed for that continent, gave a cordial
approval to the fraternal purpose of the American Bible
Society to assist. At the same time the Secretary remarked

82 LATIN AMERICA BETTER KNOWN [1821-1832

that no Scriptures could be circulated in Latin America
except Roman Catholic versions such as that of Father Scio
in Spanish. This suggestion was sufficient to lead the
Board to order as early as 1822 a set of plates of the whole
Bible in Spanish made from the Roman Catholic edition
of Father Scio. The suspicions of the priests were gener
ally dissipated when they found that the people were being
offered a Roman Catholic version only. This Scio version
was used by the Society until 1841, when by direction of
the Board the plates were removed from the printing house,
after some twenty thousand volumes had been printed.
The cause of the tragic end of the Society's Scio version
will appear later in this story.

CHAPTER XII

A NOTABLE ADVANCE

MEN called of God to work for Him are often driven to
do what they shrink from doing, and deem contrary to sound
reason. Jonah is an example often repeated in the history
of the Church, where a good man hangs back because the
call of duty seems a crazy impulse to court disaster. By
way of some such experience as this the men of the Society
were led to realise that God willed the great advance which
they now had to make, although it seemed impossible of
accomplishment. Before long they surrendered themselves
to God's leading in a new sense, received new vision and a
new energy, and did wonders.

At the end of five years the Society had secured about
three hundred Auxiliary Societies to study destitutions and
supply them, had received two hundred and sixteen thou
sand dollars for the work, and had issued about one hun
dred and forty thousand volumes of Scripture. This was
progress unexpected ; it was a wonderful growth from a
small seed. But tales of destitution kept pouring in from
the visible East and the invisible and immeasurable West.
The theory as to the share of Auxiliary Societies in the work
was that the initiative in cases of destitution belonged to
them. They would raise the money, obtain the books and
take them to the needy in their fields. The national Society
would print the books, aid where necessary by gratuitous
supplies of books, and do what it could for regions where
Auxiliaries had not yet been organised. This theory did not
justify itself in practice.

The Board of Managers sent out repeated appeals to the
Auxiliary Societies asking them diligently to supply the peo
ple with whom they were in touch in their own fields.
Some of the Societies bent to the work with vigour and

84 A NOTABLE ADVANCE [1821-

sturdy perseverance. But discovery of the tremendous
needs of the country was so startling that it led some of the
Auxiliary Societies to fall helplessly on the ground, with
drawing from the sacred toil.

In the Western States six years after the Society's or
ganisation the most careful estimates showed that at least
one-third of the population was without either Bibles or
Testaments. Within twenty years the population would be
doubled. Where could means be found to supply such a
population ? The prospect seemed appalling. " Unless
greater exertions are employed," said the Managers in their
report, " to give these people the Bible, there must ere long
exist in our country many millions of civilised human be
ings unenlightened by the oracles of God."

Reports of destitution came to the Board like voices
warning them of the tremendous responsibility placed upon
them. The population of the United States was increasing
at the rate of four hundred thousand persons every year.
Yet these facts led to more urgent appeals to the Auxili
aries, and an increase of the output of books, but to little
other action. In 1827 the Society, with all its efforts, was
unable to issue more than seventy-two thousand volumes of
Scripture. The Board of Managers commanded a printing
plant on Nassau Street consisting of eleven hand presses.
With such an equipment what could be done for the evan
gelisation of the population grouped along the coast, or
straggling out westward along a wide network of rivers and
small streams?

The Board now allowed the work of the bindery to be
carried on in their meeting room in the Society's house, and
so space was made for nine hand presses to be added to the
equipment. Finally in 1831 the Society's House on Nassau
Street was enlarged to receive eight power presses worked
by a steam engine in the basement. Twenty hand presses
on the floors above completed the plant which was able to
send out three hundred thousand volumes a year, two hun
dred persons being employed on the premises.

Meantime the hour had come for a revolution in the ex
isting system. This system made direct action by the na
tional Society in the field of an Auxiliary seem interference

1832] SUPPLY EVERY DESTITUTE FAMILY 85

even for the relief of destitution which the Auxiliary was
too torpid to deal with. The change came about naturally
enough. It sprang from the vigorous initiative of really
living local Bible Societies.

In 1824 the Bible Society in Monroe County, New York,
adopted the Board's suggestion that Auxiliaries should de
termine the exact needs of their fields. It sent agents into
every school district, who came back with accurate statis
tics. Then a public meeting was called in Rochester at
tended by Christians of all denominations. The story of
local destitution was read to this audience and proved ex
ceedingly moving. The meeting unanimously agreed that
every destitute family in the county must be supplied.
Money was raised ; an order for twenty-three hundred
Bibles and Testaments valued at eleven hundred dollars
astonished the depository in New York ; and the County
Society supplied every destitute family that would buy or
accept the Bible.

In 1827 the Philadelphia Bible Society carried the policy
a step farther. It decided to supply within three years
every destitute family in the state of Pennsylvania. This
was a glorious advance upon former plans for the supply of
the destitute. Nothing had been done with a specified time
limit or on so large a scale as the supply undertaken by the
Philadelphia Society. The supply of Pennsylvania was
completed in 1830, about forty thousand volumes having
been distributed among the destitute ; three thousand of
them being in the German language.

In February, 1829, the Bible Society of Washington
County, N. Y., sent a formal memorial to New York
requesting the American Bible Society to undertake " at its
Thirteenth Anniversary to supply within two years " Scrip
tures to every destitute family within the limits of the
United States. If the national Society would agree to do
this the Washington County Auxiliary pledged five thou
sand dollars as a donation in aid of the undertaking.

The population of the United States at this time was about
thirteen million. The number of destitute families through
out the country could not very well be estimated ; how the
destitute could be supplied could not readily be seen, but

86 A NOTABLE ADVANCE [1821-

the Board of Managers concurred in the opinion of Rev.
Dr. Proudfit, President of the Washington County Auxili
ary, who wrote : " The question now agitated, for giving
the Bible to all the destitute of our great and growing na
tion is, in my opinion, equal in the importance of its results
to any that ever has involved or can involve the delibera
tions and decisions of the American Bible Society." 1

Because of three pertinent, persistent and unanswered
questions the Board of Managers hesitated about assenting
to this proposal. First, was it possible to provide the neces
sary number of Scriptures? Second, could money to meet
the expense of this great undertaking be found? Third,
could agents be set to work in sufficient number to canvass
the country? A farmer contentedly living on ten acres of
land might possibly dare to undertake the cultivation of a
quarter section. But the proposal of the Washington
County Society implied a far greater increase of activities.
Men take up great enterprises for God only when they be
lieve that if God wishes them to do it He will teach them
how to find the means.

Accordingly at the Thirteenth Annual Meeting of the
American Bible Society on the I4th day of May, 1829,
Secretary Milnor on behalf of the Board of Managers pre
sented resolutions which were seconded by Rev. Dr. Lyman
Beecher and adopted, as follows :

" I, Resolved, that this Society feel deeply thankful to
Almighty God, that He has excited in the hearts of so many
of the conductors of its Auxiliaries the generous determina
tion to explore the wants of the destitute within their sev
eral regions of operation, and to supply them.

" II, Resolved, That this Society, with humble reliance
on Divine aid, will endeavour to supply all the destitute
families in the United States with the Holy Scriptures, that
may be willing to purchase or receive them, within the
space of two years, provided sufficient means be furnished
by its Auxiliaries and benevolent individuals in season to
enable its Board of Managers to carry this resolution into
effect.

1 Letters from the Washington County Bible Society, A. B. S.
Report, 1829, p. 77-78.

1832] "HERE AM I; SEND ME!" 87

"III, Resolved, That with the full purpose of accom
plishing, by the blessing of God, this most necessary and
important work, it be earnestly recommended to ministers
of the gospel and laymen of every denomination, in places
where no Auxiliary Societies have yet been formed, or
where they have relaxed their efforts, to take immediate
measures for carrying into effect the general distribution
of the Scriptures in their respective neighbourhoods." 1

This action took the American Bible Society out of its
original position as a sort of clearing house for co-ordinat
ing the surplus energies of a body of local Bible Societies.
If any Auxiliary became inactive the national Society
would now be answerable for the souls so left to starve.
Henceforth the supply of the destitute in the United States,
whether within or without the fields of Auxiliary Societies,
was a responsibility resting upon the Bible Society. The
Board immediately shouldered the responsibility. Through
a committee specially appointed, it appealed to churches,
individuals and local Bible Societies for help in the great
undertaking. At this time there were five hundred and
sixty-eight Bible Societies, of which three hundred and
seventy-eight were within and one hundred and ninety with
out the original thirteen states. All of these Auxiliaries
were urged to use the thoroughness shown by the Societies
in Pennsylvania and in counties where a complete supply
of the destitute had already been completed. The appeal
was heard with good will ; many answered as to a divine
call, " Here am I ; send me ! "

In North Carolina a Bible Convention was called to meet
in the Legislative Hall at Raleigh. The Governor of the
state was in the chair. Many important men addressed the
meeting with the result that the convention pledged itself
to supply every destitute family in the state with a copy of
the Scriptures. Upon hearing of this the Board of Mana
gers voted a grant for the state of North Carolina of eight
thousand Bibles valued at five thousand dollars. Great en
thusiasm was shown in other states. The purchases of
Scriptures by Auxiliaries amounted to one hundred and

1 See Report of A. B. S., 1829, p. vi.

88 A NOTABLE ADVANCE [1821-

forty-seven thousand, five hundred dollars in three years.
Some of the Bible Societies which had recently supplied the
destitute in their own fields sent, generally at great self-
sacrifice, considerable donations of money to the national
Society. For instance the Philadelphia Bible Society, still
feeling the stress of its labours in supply of its own state,
sent to the American Society a donation of $1,000 in 1829
and $500 in 1830 in aid of the general supply. Other Soci
eties besides the one in Washington County already men
tioned made large pledges of aid. The New Hampshire
Bible Society pledged $12,000, the Vermont Bible Society
$10,000, the Connecticut Bible Society $10,000, and so
forth. During the next three years (for the work was not
finished in two), churches and individuals sent special gifts
designated for the General Supply amounting to $119,000.
This tangible and hearty support of the undertaking was
to the Board and its staff like a direct word of approval
from the Most High.

During 1830 twenty thousand New Testaments were com
mitted to the American Sunday School Union with special
reference to the supply of Sunday School children. These
Testaments cost twelve cents apiece and the Board author
ised a discount of twenty per cent, where the books were
paid for as a part of the equipment of a Sunday School
room.

The activity of the Auxiliary Societies led the Board of
Managers to take a very optimistic view of the effect of
the effort to supply every destitute family in the United
States. It hoped that the effect would be a permanent
strengthening of all the Auxiliary Societies.

During the two stated years of this general supply the
books issued by the Society amounted to 480,766 volumes.
The work was not completely finished within the two years
and at the end of the third year further issues amounted to
115,802 volumes. The people at the Society's house in
New York were kept very busy printing, binding and send
ing out Scriptures ; and the volumes which they furnished
in these years formed a very much greater number than
they had expected the Society's plant ever to produce.

One curious result of this effort to supply every destitute

1832] GAIN FOR THE WHOLE NATION 89

family in the land was the discovery that in a growing popu
lation a general supply must be renewed again and again.
This means, of course, that there is no such thing as a per
manent supply of all willing to use the Bible in such a coun
try as the United States. Immigrants arrive from abroad;
children grow up and form new households; and settlers
move into newly opened regions with more or less loss of
books in the process. Like an army on an enemy's soil the
Bible Society's duty is perpetual vigilance, and its work is
never done.

It is always an interesting question whether simple Bible
distribution produces results among the people justifying
the labour and the expense. The country gains by such
efforts because, as in this case, a great number of persons
are brought under the influence of the Word of God who
had not paid attention to it before. This general supply
added to the number of copies of the Scriptures in exist
ence several hundreds of thousands. By the distribution
of these precious volumes among the people in different
parts of the country the lamp of life was lighted in innu
merable huts and houses along our northern and western
and southern frontiers- — houses which before this time had
been without a wax taper to show the way out from moral
darkness. Numbers who wished the Bible but knew not
where to get one were discovered ; in this case the General
Supply brought cheer to many a weary pilgrim in his jour
ney through the world. These results for the benefit of
the country at large were not limited to regions near the
centres of American civilisation. Great numbers of Bibles
were sent to parts of the country where no Auxiliary had
ever been formed and to settlements of which the Society
had never before heard.

It is sometimes said by those who are asked to contribute
to Bible dissemination that " all who wish for the Bible
can readily obtain one without the officious mediation of
Bible Societies." One of the great facts of Bible distribu
tion is that multitudes of people who have never read the
Bible and who have no wish for it are every year persuaded
by the colporteurs of Bible Societies to read the Book and
so are led little by little to yield to .its influence for good.

90 A NOTABLE ADVANCE [1821-

This fact disposes of that objection which commonly arises
from lack of knowledge and from the wish to excuse re
fusal of contributions. An incident of this General Sup
ply in the state of Kentucky is a further illustration. The
Bible Agent called at a house where the head of a family
said that during the larger part of the last fourteen years
he had been a member of the church, but he had never had
a Bible in his house. His wife and even his children had
often begged him when he went to town to bring back a
Bible, but whenever he reached the town he found other
uses for his money. He said that during all of this time
had a Bible been offered to him at his house he would have
bought it gladly, but that he would not ever have possessed
a Bible had it not been brought to his house by an agent of
the Bible Society.

Numbers of incidents coming to light during the two
years of this supply show how this wonderful book changes
the atmosphere of a home and a village where it is read.
One old man in Maryland was apparently past hope of re
form even though his allotted years had nearly come to an
end. He was a bad man and a hard drinker. A Bible
Agent offered him the Bible and urged him to take it and
read it. Passing that way the next year he found this same
man sober and leading an orderly life, happy because he
had taken up the reading of the Bible. The influence of
the work spreads slowly from neighbour to neighbour and
from house to house. One of the local Bible Societies
tells joyfully of a case where their agent had persuaded a
woman that she needed to read the Bible. She read it and
saw that she ought to lead a higher and nobler life. She
cast in her lot with the church, and little by little through
her influence her husband, a dissipated and worthless man,
had his eyes opened and he also came into connection with
the church. Because the Bible makes a silent but power
ful appeal to conscience, men and women in many a town
and village who have been corrupters of society have been
changed into supporters of all good ; their influence becom
ing an uplift in the whole neighbourhood. Such facts
brought to light during this first general supply are not

1832] WHAT THE BIBLE IS FOR 91

surprising, for Bible lovers know that such improvement of
the race is what the Bible is for. But they confirm faith,
and so prepare the servants of God for doing " greater
things than these."

CHAPTER XIII

THE AUXILIARY SOCIETIES AT WORK

UNDERLYING all the activities of Bible Societies one sin
cere desire is the force which controls. This is the earnest
wish to awaken men through the Bible to realisation of
their utter dependence upon God. As we look back over
the sixteen years of the Society's story, from 1816 to 1832,
it becomes clear that this controlling wish gave life to the
Auxiliaries, called out money for support of the work, took
away from losses or changes among members of the staff
any irreparable quality, and gave to the whole organisation
a clearer view of its responsibilities both toward the supply
of the people and toward the Book which was being sent
forth.

At the end of the period of which the story has occupied
us thus far, the band of eighty-four Auxiliary Societies in
1816 had become in 1832 a host of over seven hundred. In
the general supply of the destitute in the United States,
and in the decision to take up work abroad these Auxiliaries
took an immense interest. Without their aid the American
Bible Society could not have found its feet, could not have
hopefully begun its great work, and could not have aroused
the country to the need of a General Supply. The reports
and other publications of Auxiliary Societies instructed as
well as informed the people, even in so obvious and simple
a truth as that subscribing to a Bible Society is virtually a
new undertaking; an undertaking to labour in our Lord's
vineyard.1

In New York City there were in 1832 three Auxiliary
Bible Societies : the New York Female Bible Society formed

1 See Seventh Report of the Virginia Bible Society, quoted in
American Bible Society's Report, 1820, p. 105.

1821-1832] AUXILIARIES IN NEW YORK 93

in 1816, the New York Marine Bible Society formed in
1817, and the Young Men's New York Bible Society formed
in 1823. The New York Female Bible Society has, at the
time of this writing, been active in its chosen field for al
most 100 years. During its first sixteen years and within
the period over which we may now look back it made dona
tions in money to the American Bible Society amounting to
about six thousand dollars. The New York Marine Bible
Society was active in providing with Scriptures the sailors
on ships in the harbour. During this early part of its serv
ice one tour of its Secretary along the coast eastward from
New York to Maine resulted in the formation of twenty-
three Marine Bible Societies at the various centres of ship
ping, in order that a friendly hand might be extended to
the sailors frequenting these ports.

As we have already mentioned, the New York Bible
Society founded in 1809 was practically merged in the
American Bible Society in 1816. Four of its officers and
ten of its Managers were called to the direction of the new
Society. The New York Bible Society continued a formal
existence as an Auxiliary until November, 1819. Then it
coalesced with the Auxiliary New York Bible Society
founded in 1813 and formed a new Society which asked
and received from the American Bible Society in 1820
recognition as an Auxiliary under the name New York
Bible Society. In September, 1823, this (second) New
York Bible Society recognised as Auxiliary to itself a new
Society formed of ardent young men under thirty years of
age and called the Young Men's New York Bible Society.
In 1827 the various ward Bible Societies which had been
planted by the second New York Bible Society were all
that remained of that institution, and in the spring of 1828
the Young Men's New York Bible Society having stated
to the American Bible Society that it wished to become
Auxiliary to it because of the dissolution of its parent Soci
ety, the Managers of the American Bible Society granted
the privileges of an Auxiliary to the Young Men's Society
(together with an outfit of two hundred Bibles and five
hundred Testaments) until it could formally change its
relations. In March, 1829, the constitution of the Young

94 THE AUXILIARIES AT WORK [1821-

Men's Society was formally modified to meet the Auxiliary
requirements and this new member was received into the
family of Auxiliaries of the American Bible Society. The
Young Men's Bible Society was keenly interested in all
city work. In 1831 the New York Marine Bible Society
was absorbed by the Young Men's Society, which divided
with the American Bible Society the considerable liabilities
of the Marine Society.

The Young Men's Society now entered enthusiastically
upon work in the city and harbour, with liberal aid in the
form of grants of books from the American Bible Society.
In 1839, having modified its constitution to remove the age
limit of its members, it struck the words " Young Men's "
from its name and so became the New York Bible Society,
being the third Society of that name. It is still active in
work for its old field in the Borough of Manhattan and
what is now the Bronx ; it has a worthy history ; and many
of its members have rendered invaluable services as Mana
gers and officers to the American Bible Society. The only
other Auxiliary now (1915) labouring in that field is the
New York Female Bible Society, one of that small group
of strong and active Societies whose Auxiliary connection
dates from the very first year of the American Bible Soci
ety.

The total of the donations from Auxiliary Bible Soci
eties to the Treasury of the American Bible Society during
sixteen years, up to 1832, was $226,192. There were seven
hundred and ten Bible Societies on the list of Auxiliaries
at this time but three hundred and sixty-eight Societies
only were givers ; three hundred and thirty-two Societies not
yet having acquired that grace. These contributions from
Auxiliaries constituted about twenty-two per cent, of the
whole receipts of the American Bible Society during the
sixteen years. The total receipts, of course, included the
proceeds of sales of books and amounted to $1,031,261. It
is a matter of curious interest that only nine Societies in
the whole Auxiliary list each contributed, during the six
teen years an aggregate of five thousand dollars or more
in donations for the work of the national Society. Eight

1832] OBSTACLES TO SUCCESS 95

of these were organised before the American Bible Society,
and the ninth was the New York Female Bible Society
which came into existence in 1816.

Much anxiety was felt by the Board of Managers because
many Auxiliary Societies did not immediately answer the
expectations formed in the minds of the Managers. From
the first implicit confidence was felt in their honour, and
whenever an accident or a shipwreck was reported by one
of them as having caused the loss of books, the national
Society like a kind parent made good their loss. The Board
of Managers in their report of 1828 testified that while
credit for books purchased had been given on request to
Auxiliary Societies in every part of the Union without fur
ther security than that which springs from religious prin
ciple, scarcely a dollar had ever been lost to the Treasury.
The Societies paid their debts sooner or later without legal
obligation. This fact is a commentary on the principles of
the Book which the Societies circulate.

It is right to make sure that the obstacles encountered
by these local Bible Societies are recognised. The Aux
iliary Bible Societies in some of the Western states had a
path to travel which was strewn with rocks and thorns
compared with that of workers in the older parts of the
country. An agent in Missouri, explaining in December,
1832, the long delays in finishing the General Supply of
the destitute, pointed out that Missouri was divided into
thirty-three counties ; some of which were equal in area to
the whole state of Connecticut, the most of the counties
being larger than Rhode Island. For an agent to visit
every county would require of him about two thousand
miles of travel ; but to watch over the men visiting single
houses in all this area of sixty-three thousand square miles,
the agent must face a task beyond the ability of any human
being.

Besides these natural difficulties besetting many of the
Auxiliary Societies there were other causes of weakness
among them. Some finding it difficult to remit funds to
New York, hoarded them instead of sending in their sur
plus ; some invested such funds with the idea of increasing

96 THE AUXILIARIES AT WORK [1821-

their donation, but through errors of judgment or the un
settled state of the finances of the country, they lost the
whole amount.

The financial condition of some of the states is illustrated
by the circumstance that Auxiliaries from one district west
of the Mississippi wrote to the Board inquiring whether it
would receive shipments of corn and wheat in lieu of money ;
it being difficult to get drafts on New York.

Travelling Agents rendered effective aid to Auxiliaries
during the special effort to supply the destitute in the
United States ; and later, in view of the growing Bible work
abroad, did good service in focussing the enthusiasm of the
people upon the duty of giving money for the Bible Cause.
The members of the Board were cheered by receiving con
tributions like that from a minister in New York State, the
Rev. L. H. Halsey, who sent a little more than seventeen
dollars as a collection taken among the people on the
Fourth of July ; he thinking that such a contribution to the
American Bible Society would be the most sure application
of patriotism. The Agents reported many similar illustra
tions of a widespread popular feeling. A little girl in Vir
ginia proposed to eat no butter for a month so that she
might get the twenty-five cents necessary to make her an
annual member of a Female Bible Society. One of the
Agents was speaking on the needs of the world in one of
the upper counties in Virginia when a poor woman in the
audience whispered to her husband : " I have fifty cents
saved to buy coffee with ; it is hid in the blue pitcher on
the shelf in the cupboard. Go home and get it, and make
haste back lest the good man be gone. I will do without
coffee a little while longer until these people get the Gospel
among them.'' Rev. Dr. Plummer of Virginia in telling
this story, pointed out a great truth. " The treasury of
the Lord," he said, " is the hearts of his people. Get them
rightly affected and to a good object they will give all, if
necessary." With such a spirit abroad in many parts of
the country it is not surprising that the receipts of the
Bible Society during the years 1829 to 1832 when the Gen
eral Supply was in progress, amounted to more than three

1832] A CHANGE IN THE PRESIDENCY 97

hundred and sixty thousand dollars; the average of the
annual receipts being more than double those in any year
previous to 1827.

It was during these years that the Society was gradually
increasing its somewhat haphazard shipments of Scriptures
abroad. Besides grants of Bibles for South America and
the Islands of the West Indies including Porto Rico, some
thing was done for Indians in Canada and in Surinam ; and
one package of Spanish Scriptures was sent to the Philip
pine Islands by a gentleman engaged in the South Ameri
can trade who was going to that almost unknown part of
the world. The languages of the books which the Society
printed or otherwise provided for labourers among aliens
at home or abroad in the first sixteen years of its effort
numbered twenty.

When the Emperor of Russia dies the sad event is no
sooner certain than the crowds in the streets may be heard
shouting " Long Live the Emperor ! " with every manifes
tation of joy. The feeling of the populace is not neces^
sarily careless as to the death of the Emperor. It is merely
signifying in its own way the fact that the empire is not
dead, but is strong and capable as ever. Something of the
same conditions obtain in a Society that outlives the genera
tion in which it is formed. President Boudinot, President
John Jay had passed away, and now in July, 1831, President
Richard Varick reached the end of his allotted years. His
career had been useful as well as picturesque. In the early
years of his life he had thrown his soul into his duties as
a soldier. After serving with credit throughout the Revo
lutionary War, he became a most energetic Attorney Gen
eral of New York State and in 1787 he was elected Mayor
of New York City. Later he became prominent in a num
ber of works of benevolence. During the time of his con
nection with the American Bible Society he was one of the
parishioners of Rev. Dr. J. B. Romeyn, and he served the
Society as Treasurer, Vice-President, and then for four
years as President.

In December of the same year the Hon. John Cotton
Smith of Sharon, Connecticut, a Vice-President of the

98 THE AUXILIARIES AT WORK [1821-

Society, was elected President. Mr. Smith's father during
fifty years was pastor of the Congregational Church at
Sharon; and he himself had served his state as member of
the Legislature, Judge of the Supreme Court, Lieutenant
Governor, and Governor. He was the first President of
the Connecticut Bible Society, and was President of the A.
B. C. F. M. for several years while serving the American
Bible Society in the same capacity.

In looking over the list of changes in the staff of the
Society during its first sixteen years one is surprised at
their number. In 1825 the Hon. John Quincy Adams, a
Vice-President of the Society, became President of the
United States. This did not diminish his interest in the
Society which was shown in the letter accepting office as
Vice- President in 1817, when he was Secretary of State.
He then wrote : " In accepting the appointment I am duly
sensible to the honour conferred upon me by this invita
tion to join the assembly of those whose voices in unison
with the heavenly host at the birth of the Saviour, proclaim
good tidings of great joy to all people." While President
of the United States his duties in Washington prevented
his attending the Annual Meetings of the Society, but he
was careful to write his regrets with his own hand, and a
number of these interesting autographs are among the
archives of the Society to-day.

In 1827 Vice-Presidents Thomas Worthington of Ohio,
William Tilghman, Chief Justice of the state of Pennsyl
vania, William Phillips, a well-known educational philan
thropist and a warm friend and supporter of the American
Bible Society from the very first day of its existence,
passed away. In 1828 Governor Dewitt Clinton died.
Governor Clinton as Vice-President of the Society was a
familiar figure in the Board room and in the Annual Meet
ings, as while Governor of the State he frequently came to
New York to preside at these meetings. On the front of
the Chamber of Commerce in New York one may see Gov
ernor Clinton's statue, with Alexander Hamilton on his
right, and on his left John Jay, the second President of the
Bible Society, whose love for the Bible was the key to his
successful public life. In 1829 Vice-President Bushrod

1832] TIME BRINGS MORE CHANGES 99

Washington of Virginia, a nephew of General George Wash
ington, a soldier of the Revolution, and a Justice of the
Supreme Court of the United States, came to the end of
his life. The same year General Matthew Clarkson passed
away, profoundly respected for good works wherever he
was known, and most faithful to his duties as Vice-Presi
dent of the Bible Society by presiding at almost all of the
Board meetings up to the time of his death. In 1830 Vice-
President Andrew Kirkpatrick of New Jersey died, and in
1832 Colonel Robert Troup of New York finished his long
and useful life. The vacancies caused by death among the
Vice-Presidents were filled by the choice of W. W. Wool-
sey, for eight years Tceasurer of the Society ; of John
Pintard, the sturdy Huguenot who was the Society's first
Recording Secretary ; and worthily to fill the place of Bush-
rod Washington, the Honourable John Marshall, Chief Jus
tice of the United States, who was removed by death in

1835-

Two of the Managers passed away during this period.
Mr. Divie Bethune died in 1824 full of good works and
remembered by all charitable institutions in the city ; and
Dr. John Watts, who died in 1830. The Recording Secre
tary, John Pintard, resigned in 1832 and was succeeded by
Mr. R. F. Winslow. In 1825 the Rev. S. S. Woodhull re
signed his office as Secretary for Domestic Correspondence
on the 7th of April. On the same day he was re-elected
with two others, the Rev. Thomas McAuley, D.D., LL.D.,
Professor of Mathematics in Union College, a man of
varied scholarship and an eloquent preacher, together with
Rev. Chas. Sommers, preacher of the South Baptist Church
in New York City ; the understanding being that they might
work collectively or separately in different departments of
the work. It is well enough, perhaps, to repeat the cir
cumstance that the Secretaries were men occupied by their
own professional duties who received no remuneration
from the American Bible Society. The Treasurer of the
Society, W. W. Woolsey, after eight years of faithful
service for which he received no remuneration, resigned
in 1827. Mr. Woolsey was elected a Vice-President of the
Society. Mr. John Adams, a member of the Board of

ioo THE AUXILIARIES AT WORK [1821-

Managers, was elected Treasurer, but resigned on finding
the work too heavy. Mr. Garrat N. Bleecker, also a mem
ber of the Board of Managers, was then chosen to be
Treasurer with a salary of one thousand dollars a year;
but he too found the work too engrossing and resigned after
three months, being followed in this office by Mr. Hubert
Van Wagenen, also a member of the Board of Managers.

In the latter half of this period the Board of Managers
had to meet the question of issuing Bibles containing the
Apocrypha. Quite early in the history of the British and
Eoreign Bible Society the Societies which it had promoted
in various parts of Europe and aided by grants in money,
printed Bibles in various languages which contained the
books of the Apocrypha either grouped together at the end
of the canonical books, or scattered among those books as
in the Septuagint. When Scriptures printed in England
were sent to the Societies on the continent, they met strong
objections because they did not contain the books of the
Apocrypha. As early as 1812 these objections were made
in louder tones because the British and Eoreign Bible Soci
ety asked the European Societies to omit the Apocrypha in
printing Scriptures with the money of the British Society.
Protests arose and finally the British Society decided that
it would not object to the use of the Apocrypha provided
the expense of printing it was not paid by the grants from
England. This satisfied the Continental Societies since they
could get the Scriptures from England in sheets and bind
them with the Apocrypha printed elsewhere. Upon this a
storm arose among the people at home which was not easily
quieted. In 1827 the British and Foreign Bible Society
decided not to grant Scriptures in sheets and unbound, and
later, in accordance with the wish of the majority in Great
Britain, it made drastic rules to the effect that its money
must never be used in any way to circulate Scriptures with
the Apocrypha. The Scottish Auxiliary Societies consid
ered this action as proof that the Committee of the Brit
ish and Foreign Bible Society up to this time had not acted
sincerely and demanded that all members of the Committee
be removed from office to make way for more trustworthy
men. Very naturally, this demand was not granted and

1832] THE APOCRYPHA QUESTION 101

nearly all the Scottish Auxiliaries withdrew from the sup
port of the British and Foreign Bible Society and later
formed the Scottish National Bible Society.

It was impossible that so much heat could be generated
by this discussion in England without warming feelings in
America. To make a long story short, in 1827 the Board
of Managers voted that thereafter no books containing the
Apocrypha might be sent out from the depository of the
Society. It was the presence of the Apocrypha in the
Bibles circulated in South America (in the version of
Father Scio) that gave those Bibles free circulation among
the very suspicious Roman Catholic clergy. Under the
vote of the Board respecting the Apocrypha the plates con
taining the Apocrypha were removed from the Society's
set and all editions of the Scio version printed after this
edict were without the Apocrypha. This caused, for some
little time, an interruption of sales in Latin America ; but
since the books contained the canonical books according to
the Scio version, the Bibles of the Society were not entirely
proscribed, while the Testaments were circulated as usual.

CHAPTER XIV

GO IN THIS THY MIGHT

AN incident of the year 1823 was the arrival at the Bible
House in New York of a copy of the Holy Bible in Chinese
translated by Rev. Dr. Morrison of the London Missionary
Society, assisted by Rev. Dr. Milne. This book, a dona
tion to the Biblical Library, was a sort of revelation to the
warm-hearted lovers of the Bible who directed the affairs
of the American Bible Society. The Holy Bible actually
translated and printed in the language of the vast, hostile,
self-complacent Chinese Empire seemed a modern miracle
and a concrete illustration of the gift of tongues. Looking
at that book one would call to mind its character as a mis
sionary's enterprise ; the tremendous labour involved ; the
long, intense study; the struggles to overcome prejudice on
the part of helpers ; the great learning which enabled the
translator to use the Hebrew and Greek originals for a
text; the utter forgetfulness of self; the sturdy determina
tion and faith which persisted through all those years of
the translation work. This was indeed an illustration of
devotion to the Saviour, wherein the servant gives himself
up hoping that something of his work may help to com
plete that which his Master began upon earth. The sight
of this book representing for the Chinese a new era, and
for the Christian church an evidence that the martyr spirit
yet exists, must have had influence in impelling the men
of the Bible House to meditate upon what great things for
God they could undertake.

Even while the great effort to supply all the destitute in
the United States was in progress, the Bible Society looked
abroad. Missionaries of the American Board in Ceylon
and in the Sandwich Islands had asked and received grants
in aid of printing and distributing the Scriptures, in the

102

1821-1832] A SUGGESTION FROM INDIA 103

one case in Tamil, and in the other in Hawaiian. Because
Americans residing in Paris asked support for the Protes
tant Bible Society of Paris, through them the Board had
made grants for Prance.

In 1827 the various influences inclining the Board to ex
tend its effort to foreign lands as suggested by the Second
Article of the Constitution acquired force. Prom India
came a little suggestion which penetrated even careless minds
and bore fruit. It was the simple question, ought not the
American .Bible Society to supply Bibles needed by Amer
ican Missions ? The question answered itself. The need
of Bibles in American Missions abroad, other things being
equal, can best be supplied with Scriptures from the home
source. In the case of translations, rules of interpretation
should control which are usual with the missionaries who
are to distribute the books. In so small things as printing
and binding, questions of taste can best be decided by canons
common to all educated Americans.

The Bible is as essential to the missionary as education
or as clothing. Parents do not let their children beg for
food or clothes even from respected and beloved neighbours.
When rightly viewed the missionary's need of the Bible is
the need of the churches who support him. American en
terprises in the service of God should be sustained in all
of their departments by American benevolence. Culture in
giving for God's sake comes to naught if other nations are
called upon to pay any serious part of the cost of the mis
sions which our churches claim as their own. It became
quite clear, in an instant as it were, that American churches
have as their privilege and their birthright the supply of
their missions by the American Bible Society ; not for its
sake, but for their own.

This little suggestion from India was put into the minds
of the Secretaries in New York by learning that American
missionaries among the Mahrattas near Bombay had ap
plied to the British and Foreign Bible Society for aid in
printing the Scriptures which they had translated for their
own mission work. About the same time the Greeks were
attracting attention by their determined struggle for inde
pendence. In 1827 their independence had been secured by

104 "GO IX THIS THY MIGHT' [1821-

the coalition of European Powers which annihilated the
Turkish fleet at Navarino. Rev. Jonas King, a missionary
of the American Board in Syria, immediately went to
Greece to see what could be done in the way of Christian
comfort for the Grecian warriors. It was not long before
he was appealing for modern Greek Testaments to dis
tribute, for the common people cannot understand the an
cient tongue. The Board granted him $500, and in 1828
$1,000 more to buy Testaments in Modern Greek from the
British and Foreign Bible Society ; and thus the Board ad
vanced in the direction of adopting the rule to supply Amer
ican Missions with the Scriptures which they needed. In
1830 the Rev. Dr. Rufus Anderson of the American Board,
writing on the need of a better version of the New Testa
ment in Modern Greek which he wished that the American
Bible Society would prepare, said to Secretary Brigham :
" My dear brother, this is a work worthy of your Society
and I feel extremely anxious that your Society should do it.
It will bring blessings upon us from many ready to perish
in that country. Let us have a memorial in Greece ! " ^

About the same time one of the American missionaries
in Ceylon speaking about the need of more Tamil Scrip
tures than they could get, wrote to the Secretaries in Xew
York : ' The people are within the limits of the grant made
by the King of Zion and as a channel of communication be
tween them and you is widely open they are become your
neighbours. Living waters from your Society may flow in
a direct course to this distant land and here by the mission
aries upon the spot those waters will, permit me to assure
you, be guided to the very plants which we believe are des
tined to become trees of righteousness." :

We have already spoken of the decision of the Board to
send an Agent to South America. This action did not com
mit the Society to a definite commencement of work in for
eign lands. Latin America was barely beyond the home
limits ; a field for which responsibility could not be denied.
Moreover, the habit of adopting policies approved by the
British and Foreign Bible Society doubtless \veighed for

1 Report of the American ?>ible Society, 1830, p. 73.

2 Report of the American Bible Society, 1828, p. 55.

1832] A PATH THAT LEADS AFAR 105

something in the decision to send a man to South America
just as that Society had done. But the decision was an
other step in the direction of a recognised policy of foreign
work for the Society. The new path diverged only a little
from the one already trodden, although when followed it
led far afield.

Another force which influenced the American Bible So
ciety at this time, curiously enough, sprang from the en
thusiasm aroused by the General Supply at home. There
was in the hearts of Christians a deep yearning to see the in
fluence of the Bible widely felt to the glory of God. When
the plan to supply all the destitute in the United States was
successfully carried through, it was a revelation of possi
bilities to all warm-hearted Christians. Like any discovery
in physical science, once made known it led many persons to
make new applications of the principle. People now thought
of Bible work abroad as something which might be under
taken ; therefore it must be done.

In July, 1831, the Rev. Josiah Brewer, missionary of the
American Board at Smyrna, Turkey (father of the late
Justice D. J. Brewer of the United States Supreme Court,
a Vice-President of the Society), wrote a letter from the
island of Patmos in which he said : that here where St. John
saw the visions of the Apocalypse the thought had come into
his mind, since the work of supplying every family in the
LTnited States was so nearly accomplished " foreign parts
may justly claim a larger share of the attention of the Soci
ety. Why should you not then, as the next great work,
undertake to furnish with a copy of the word of God every
family dwelling where were the churches mentioned in the
New Testament and those especially to whom its holy Epis
tles were addressed ? "

M.r. Brewer saw the difficulties in the way of such a
scheme but leaving out of account the Muslims, the Jews,
the bigoted and the illiterate, there would still remain some
tens of thousands who have succeeded to the soil, the sky,
and the oppressions which belonged to the first Christians,
while they have a very imperfect knowledge of the divine
guidance which the early Christians enjoyed.

Great interest was always aroused among the people in

106 "GO IN THIS THY MIGHT' [1821-

the United States by reference to missionary work in pagan
lands. One agent wrote : ;' The topic of sending Bibles to
the heathen almost invariably arrests the attention of the
audience and creates a deathlike silence in the building."
Something of this effect was the result of the publication of
Mr. Brewer's suggestion. Like a cry from those ancient
churches it stirred the hearts and touched the consciences
of the people. In planning for benevolent work Christians
throughout the land would find a sacred joy in reaching out
their arms afar to embrace destitute nations.

A little later the missionaries of the American Board in
the Sandwich Islands needed for printing on their own press
an edition of twenty thousand Hawaiian New Testaments
about five thousand dollars. The mission in Ceylon needed
about five thousand dollars to bring out a new edition of
the Tamil Bible. The missionaries among the Mahrattas
in the region of Bombay, India, needed a new edition of the
Marathi Bible that would cost about five thousand dollars ;
the first edition having been printed at the expense of the
British and Foreign Bible Society. About the same time
the Rev. E. C. Bridgman, missionary of the American Board
at Canton, China, wrote to Dr. Milnor urging help from the
American Bible Society for printing the Bible for China,
whose enormous population comprises about one-third part
of the human race. " Probably," he said, " no one enterprise
of equal extent and importance can ever engage the attention
of the American or any other Bible Society." x Then a
letter from Russia showed that Bible circulation in the great
empire promised great results. At the same time mission
aries among the American Indians (then still classed as for
eign nations), begged for the publication of Scriptures in
the Ojibwa and Mohawk languages.

These appeals placed the Board of Managers in a some
what serious dilemma. The Society was in debt and that
debt must be extinguished by economy and, if possible, by
an increase of income. General Supply of the destitute
families in the United States was not yet finished. In Ala
bama and Missouri, and the territories of Arkansas and

1 Report of the American Bible Society, 1832, p. 58.

1832] A COMMON IMPEDIMENT 107

Florida less than half of the destitute had yet been reached.
Moreover the promise must be fulfilled to supply Sunday
School children with Bibles or Testaments; in itself no
small undertaking.

The first of the items just named seemed to bar progress.
That is to say, the Society being in debt could not spend
money upon new enterprises until the debt was paid off.
These calls for help from the ends of the earth would move
hearts of stone, but the common sense of business men pro
tested against appropriation of money while people had de
liberately left the Treasury empty. There were those whose
missionary zeal thought that to refuse these appeals showed
lack of faith. If some urged the danger of beginning a new
enterprise without visible means of completing it, others
insisted on the danger of weak faith. The situation of the
Board of Managers so far as means were concerned was
something like that of the officers of a steamer whose coal
bunkers have been emptied and swept out when five hun
dred miles from the shore.

The Board was, in fact, beginning to feel the burden
which continually hampers Managers of every missionary
enterprise. Mr. Brigham, the youngest of the Secretaries,
had been a missionary of the American Board. Naturally
his sympathies were closely connected with the needs of
that Society. Moreover, having travelled among people
abroad who knew nothing of the Bible, he knew both the
grievous quality of their needs and the precious fruits of
Bible distribution among them. Nevertheless, with all his
faith and his enthusiasm he, too, felt restricted by inability
to see the way out of a maze. Yet, in the words of Rev.
G. W. Bethune of Albany at this time, " The bread of the
soul ought to be as common as the bread of the body."

To the Bible Society, in short, its sixteenth year was a
year of crisis. It had already distributed Scriptures in
foreign lands; in 1831, however, duty to aliens presented
itself to the Board and to the friends of the Bible in Amer
ica with an appeal to conscience as irresistible as that which
the vision on the Jaffa housetop left with St. Peter. The
Managers in their report say, " The voice of Providence is
now speaking on this subject in a manner so striking and

io8 " GO IN THIS THY MIGHT ': [1821-

distinct that few can but hear and regard it. The Society
seems to have reached an interesting crisis ; a point from
which its charities must take a wider range and flow in a
deeper and broader stream." x

The difficulties of the Managers did not arise from any
attempt to carry on a work too large for the country to
bear. They were like men among flinty rocks containing
nuggets of gold, who have no hammer that can break the
rocks. There is a certain advantage in such experiences.
By means of such difficulties Christian workers are held
back from the folly of self-confidence. Enthusiastic mis
sionaries may often feel that self-sacrificing energy is the
principal thing ; but our Lord places prayer before this when
He exhorts men to pray and not to faint. It is true that
Christian workers must take risks, and perhaps their Mas
ter expects them to encounter the risk of failure in order
that they may be led more constantly to remember their
dependence upon Him. However this may be, through
such experiences of inability on account of lack of means
to do what ought to be done men learn the axiom that in
work ordained of God no check can be a permanent check.

Little by little light came to the perplexed Board of Man
agers. In the very beginning of 1831 the Massachusetts
Auxiliary sent a donation of five hundred dollars to the
Treasury, signified its approval of any efforts which the
Society might take to raise money within the field of the
Massachusetts Society; and more than this, deposited $5,000
in the Treasury as a loan, the interest on which should be
five per cent., payable in books. After Mr. Brewer's pro
posal from the island of Patmos had time to become known
and be thoroughly grasped, the New Jersey Bible Society,
by an entirely undesigned coincidence which fitted in very
happily with the wishes of the Board, wrote to say that it
had decided to raise in New Jersey during the year $5,000
for printing the New Testament in Hawaii. Toward the
end of the year the Philadelphia Bible Society (not Aux
iliary) announced a decision to raise $10,000 for print
ing Bibles in foreign lands ; either in the Sandwich Islands

1 Annual Report, 1832, p. 34.

1832] A MOMENTOUS DECISION 109

or in any other needy region which its Board of Man
agers might select. A little later the Washington County,
N. Y., Bible Society pledged to the American Bible So
ciety $1,000 for foreign work. These good people, with
out consultation, all seemed to be moved by the sentiment
expressed by Robert Denniston of the Orange County,
N. Y., Auxiliary, when he said : " Because of the silent
but incalculable control of the Bible over public opinion, all
American citizens should support the American Bible So
ciety." x

And so it came to pass that when a committee of which
Dr. Milnor was chairman reported upon the general situa
tion, it called attention to these facts : that the supply of
Scriptures for foreign lands was no new thing — the Soci
ety had expended during fifteen years $23,133 for this pur
pose ; that the General Supply at home would probably make
no further great demands upon the Treasury ; while the in
terest in foreign missions was sufficient to ensure liberal
contributions for work abroad. The Board thereupon
adopted resolutions to the effect that, relying upon Divine
favour and upon the good-will of Auxiliaries and friends
of the Society to furnish adequate means, it would en
deavour during the next year to send $15,000 to the Missions
of the American Board in Bombay, Ceylon and Sandwich
Islands ; that it would print as soon as possible for use in
Greece twenty thousand Testaments in Modern Greek ; and
that, within the year, it would appropriate and pay to the
Baptist Missionary Convention $5,000 toward printing Dr.
Judson's version of the Bible in Burmese.

Following this brave utterance the Society, at its six
teenth Anniversary, May loth, 1832, formally declared that
" it is the imperious duty of those connected with this So
ciety and its Auxiliaries to furnish liberal contributions for
the purpose of promoting Bible distribution abroad as Di
vine Providence opens the way."

This momentous decision would not bear fruit which
many of those who united in it could 'live to see, but their
faith was sound that through this action deliverance would

1 Monthly Extracts, July, 1832.

no "GO IX THIS THY MIGHT" [1821-1832

gladden thousands now hopelessly enslaved by the powers
of evil. Like Gideon when trusting God he led his little
band against the hosts of Midian, the Society had heard the
voice of God saying, as it waited on Him, " Go in this thy
might."

THIRD PERIOD 1832-1841
CHAPTER XV

A MOST CHRISTIAN ENTHUSIASM

DURING the year 1832 the Board was surprised and de
lighted to find that the debt of $22,000 with which it com
menced the year was gradually being paid off. It received
$4,190 from legacies, and $41,800 in donations for the gen
eral work or for special enterprises abroad.

One of the donations is worthy of special notice. It was
a contribution of four hundred and fifty dollars from a
Protestant Episcopal clergyman of Yonkers, New York,
who during four years had given to the American Bible
Society one thousand and twenty dollars. These generous
gifts were taken from a benevolent fund for which the donor
had set apart one-tenth of his salary and portions of any
fees which he received for various services ; the incident il
lustrating a fact which our people sometimes forget, namely,
that by setting apart a fixed proportion of their income at
the time when it is received, they offer their Lord regularly
the worship which they owe. Then the decision as to ap
portioning their gifts of benevolence, having relation to a
fund that is already the Lord's is made without pain or an
xiety. The Board of Managers, as a token of unfeigned
respect for this generous donor, constituted him a Director
for Life of the American Bible Society.

The home usages of the people of the United States were
still very simple at this time in matters of dress, food and
amusements ; in fact, the home life of professing Christians
very largely centred about the Church and its interests.
The decision to take up work abroad in a serious manner
appealed directly to the eagerness of the Christian people
for the advance of the Kingdom.

Lands ruled by paganism and Mohammedanism were
known as blighted by systematic oppression of the poor.

ii2 A MOST CHRISTIAN ENTHUSIASM [1832-

Religious superstition seemed to have united with selfish
greed to grind the faces of the poor, whom ignorance made
helpless. The missionary impulse to aid people in such
straits now resembled the great surges of a reformation.
Wherever the appeal was heard the people were deeply
stirred and they were in haste to see the whole world profiting
by the gospel of Christ.

Meantime manifold activities at the Bible House contin
ued. The Bible Society laid its hand upon the shores of
the Pacific by sending a grant of books to a colony at the
mouth of the Columbia River in Oregon. It engaged in
" foreign " work among the Cherokee Indians. It sent
Scriptures to Java to be used by the American Board's mis
sionaries, Lyman and Munson, who, however, had been
killed by the natives before the books reached their destina
tion. It sent a small grant of Scriptures to Labrador where
good Archdeacon Wix was looking after the spiritual wel
fare of the fishermen dear to Dr. Grenfell's heart to-day.
In Texas an Auxiliary Bible Society had been formed and
received recognition and grants. Correspondence with for
eign missionaries brought many calls for large, if not lavish,
grants of money. Dr. Gutzlaff writing from China about
this time, gave this warning : " You may rest assured that
we will drain your funds, for we have a large nation before
us and if only the hundredth Chinaman was to get a Bible
from you, a ten years' income of your Society would not
be sufficient to defray expenses." Such a sentence must
have brought a cold chill to the veins of many who looked
for a quick triumphal march of the Kingdom through the
world.

Many persons felt that the decision of the Society to aid
American Missions abroad while a real advance, was not
adequate. It was a cautious step rather than a swinging
stride toward a fixed goal. Thousands in pagan lands trem
bled on the edge of the grave from which the Bible could
show them a way of escape. The Society had supplied
every family in the United States within two years' time ;
why should it not be an instrument for the prompt delivery
of the ignorant and terror-stricken everywhere ? Mr.
Brewer's proposal to accomplish in a definite time the sup-

1841] A SPEEDY SUPPLY OF THE WORLD 113

ply of all families in the Seven Churches of Asia seemed
reasonable enough, and the adoption of that proposal would
be a wise beginning. The Rev. Dr. William S. Plummer
of Virginia voiced a general opinion by suggesting that it
would be possible to supply all destitute families in the world
in twenty years, if a Christian enthusiasm in all Western
lands could be aroused to move all Bible Societies in the
world in pursuit of the one noble object.

The Board of Managers saw difficulties in the way of an
undertaking to supply all the world in twenty years ; but
on the other hand it was not willing to do anything that
might diminish the enthusiasm of Auxiliary Societies like
that of Petersburg with which Dr. Plummer was connected
or that of Virginia which heartily supported his proposal.
An Auxiliary without an object to call out its energy is
sure to lose efficiency. So it set about preparing resolutions
which would engage the Society in world-wide Bible dis
tribution. It invited Dr. Plummer to visit New York for
conference respecting the resolutions to be offered to the
Society in May, 1833. ^r- Plummer brought to the Board
a draft of a resolution which definitely committed the Amer
ican Bible Society to an effort to supply all the destitute in
the world within twenty years. Letters from distinguished
men like Dr. Gauldwell, President of the University of
North Carolina, Dr. Baxter, President of Union Theolog
ical Seminary of Virginia, Bishop Moore, President of the
Virginia Bible Society, and from distinguished clergymen
in Philadelphia, Baltimore and Princeton, New Jersey,
urged the adoption of the twenty years' limit for the supply
of the whole \vorld.

As a result of somewhat long discussions in a Special
Committee and in the Board, Dr. Plummer's definite limita
tion to twenty years of the supply of the world was, with
his consent, taken out of the resolution to be proposed to
the Society. At the Annual Meeting, May 9, 1833, after
addresses which insisted on the enlargement of the foreign
operations of the Society, Secretary McAuley presented a
series of resolutions in which was concentrated the essence
of the feeling so generally prevalent; namely, that just as
is done when any much needed public work is to be con-

H4 A MOST CHRISTIAN ENTHUSIASM [1832-

structed, a time limit ought to be fixed within which all
the destitute in the world shall be supplied with the Bible.
To this end the resolutions instructed the Board of Man
agers to confer with other Bible Societies and friends of the
Bible cause, engaging them to co-operate in an attempt to
supply the Bible to all destitute inhabitants of the globe
within a definite period.

The emotion caused by these resolutions as adopted can
hardly be imagined. Few of the leaders in the discussion
had deeply considered the difficulties in the way of such a
supply of the whole world. But these resolutions took the
Bible Society far beyond the position of helper to American
Missions abroad, pledging it to independent responsibility
for the distribution of Scriptures wherever destitution ex
isted.

The Board now sent out a pamphlet containing the reso
lutions adopted by the Society with the letters and ad
dresses which supported them. The pamphlet was hardly
so concrete as the appeal sent to Israel by Saul in behalf of
Jabesh, but it had a similar effect. It was given the widest
distribution through the religious press, the educational in
stitutions, the Life Directors and Life Members of the
Bible Society, and the Auxiliary Societies all over the coun
try. The Virginia Bible Society issued once more a mov
ing appeal telling its supporters that " all these things stir
men to action. The deputation of Flathead Indians fifteen
hundred miles to St. Louis to ask for the Book of Life is
a command as truly as the cry of the man from Mace
donia." The Methodist Episcopal Conferences in several
places responded with confidence and enthusiasm. Many
denominations were thrilled as in a great revival. Replies
came to the Board of Managers from fifteen ecclesiastical
bodies and thirty-five Auxiliary Societies insisting upon the
supply of the whole world within twenty years. The one
feeling in every quarter seemed to be readiness to face any
sacrifice, because when God calls for service great sacrifice
alone can satisfy the demands of conscience.

The missionary idea was rooted in the hearts of the peo
ple ; its execution seemed to them to demand haste. This
was the meaning of the persistent cry for finishing the work

1841] TWENTY YEARS ENOUGH 115

in twenty years, which cynics of our day might class with
a baby's cry with outstretched hands for the moon. Rev.
Dr. Plummer wrote in December, 1833, to the Board of
Managers a new appeal for the claim that every family in
the world can certainly be supplied with Bibles in twenty
years. The greatest difficulty, if not the only difficulty,
seemed to be that of providing the necessary money ; but
his enthusiasm was at a high tide and carried him over even
this difficulty. " Shall such noble causes as your own,"
he asked, " be forever compelled to add up a few scores of
thousands per annum and no more, while one single horse
race in the United States gets three hundred thousand dol
lars?" Dr. Plummer estimated the population of the
world at eight hundred million, and the total of families to
be supplied at one hundred and thirty million. This would
mean a cost of one hundred and thirty million dollars in
twenty years, or six and a half cents apiece each year to
raise six and a half million dollars per year. But, he stated,
the cost would be less than this. Many Bibles would be
paid for by those who received them. Moreover, some
families would entirely refuse the Bible, so they should be
left out of account. Furthermore, commercial publishers
sell a great many Bibles at such a time, for experience shows
that every Bible distribution increases the sales of those who
print the Bible for profit. There could be no difficulty in
raising the money save cupidity, selfishness and sloth so
glaring as to make the Christian world blush with shame.

This appeal seemed to many Christians in America to
spring from facts quite incontrovertible. Just as every
family in the United States was supplied in two or three
years by the American Bible Society alone, so every family
in the world might be supplied in twenty years by all the
Bible Societies in concerted effort. The weakness of the
people swayed by such a proposal was their inability to see
beyond the limits of their own country. To the masses
English was the only intelligible language of the world.
The people knew very little indeed of the vast expanses to
be travelled ; of the strange sounds encountered in the speech
of every country reached ; of the illiteracy which prevents
the masses in pagan lands from reading their own languages.

ii6 A MOST CHRISTIAN ENTHUSIASM [1832-

It was quite impossible for people in the United States to
realise that a Christian Bible Agent entering a purely Mo
hammedan country at that time, might easily suffer death
merely because of a religious animosity. Nor could they
imagine that a stranger going into some countries without
knowledge of the local language would be killed as being, of
course, an enemy. Moreover, no one outside of the highest
institutions of learning could challenge Dr. Plummer's fig
ures. When his vigorous imagination interpreted his
declaration that " the estimates of faith are the only basis
on which we are justified in acting in the affairs of our royal
Master, Jesus Christ," there was no more to be said.

The Board could not disregard the almost unanimous feel
ing of its impatient supporters ; yet under the restraint of
its own calm judgment it quietly waited for the opinion of
the other Bible Societies. Meanwhile various influences
acting upon the business world suggested delay and delibera
tion. The nullification trouble in South Carolina took place
in 1832. The Compromise Tariff was already causing some
disturbance among commercial houses, and President Jack
son's removal of government deposits from the banks in dif
ferent parts of the country threw a warning shadow over
financial circles.

The answers from the British and Foreign Bible So
ciety and the French and Foreign Bible Society were de
cisive. The last named Society warmly approved the spirit
of the proposal sent out by the American Society and
heartily favoured a general appeal for funds to press on the
work ; but its cautious conclusion w^as that it should not com
mit itself to complete the work in a fixed time. The Com
mittee of the British and Foreign Bible Society was also
fraternally kind in its treatment of a proposal which it must
have regarded almost as due to the zeal of youth and inex
perience. It pointed out several points which should be
considered. People now accessible may become otherwise
at any moment. Calculation as to the number of versions
of Scripture which will be necessary, or of the time that
will be required for making them was, as yet, quite im
possible. To supply every family throughout the world
would involve a gratuitous distribution exceeding the ability

1841] THE TIME LIMIT UNPRACTICAL 117

of all the Bible Societies; and this opinion was based upon
years of experience among the half-clad natives of the Ear
East. Eor these reasons the Committee of the British So
ciety decided that the multiplication of agents to distribute
the Bible is not a duty so long as the prospects of their work
are entirely undefined.

The plan to supply Bibles to all the destitute families in
the world within twenty years had disappeared like a fog
before a gale. Dr. Plummer was invited to come to New
York, and under the circumstances readily agreed that the
time limit for the supply of the world must be given up.
The matter necessarily came before the Annual Meeting.
There one of the Secretaries, Rev. Dr. S. H. Cone, moved,
Rev. Dr. Plummer seconded, and Rev. Mr. Winslow of the
American Board's Mission in India supported a resolution
to the effect that the Society ought to aim to supply the desti
tute in all the world in the shortest possible time, and that
all other Bible Societies should be invited to strive for the
same object.

More than a year after this decision contributions were
received from different parts of the country for Bible dis
tribution abroad, conditioned upon the union of all Bible
Societies to supply the whole world in twenty years. The
hearts of the people had been moved. They saw the duty
of giving to others the Book which they found precious
themselves. Even the self-seeking, hearing the discussion
of motives for doing this \vork without delay, had some
appreciation of the value of noble self-sacrifice in such a
cause and joined their contributions with those of their
neighbours. The principle that America is bound to do its
share in supplying Bibles to the world had pervaded the
churches as the sweet perfume of lilies pervades a house.
It was with much difficulty that the Board of Managers could
make people believe that the work could not be finished in
twenty years, and it is to the credit of those who sent dona
tions limited by that condition that in general they did not
recall their gifts on being told that the condition could not be
fulfilled.

This Christian enthusiasm persisted although directed into
more practical channels, for it was rooted in love for Christ

uS A CHRISTIAN ENTHUSIASM [1832-1841

and devotion to His work. The sending out of the Book
in different languages could proceed with more certainty
when freed from limitations of haste and hurry. The great
object of the Society and of its warm-hearted supporters
was to increase the circulation of the Bible. What that
means David Abeel, the American missionary, had ex
plained at the Anniversary of the British and Foreign Bible
Society. He said, in effect, " There is a missionary who
can go where I cannot ; who can do what I cannot. He is
not a Churchman ; he is not a Dissenter. He is not a Cal-
vinist ; he is not an Armenian. He is not an American, nor
an Englishman, nor a Scotchman, nor a Hollander. He
seems to hate sects and many of the most prominent sects he
never even mentions. That great missionary is the Bible ! "

CHAPTER XVI

RESPONSIBILITIES FOLLOWING A GREAT DECISION

DEVOTION to God's service is an essential to progress, as
simple and as sweeping in its demands as loyalty to military
service. In history, as commonly written, the sword and
more complicated instruments of slaughter outrank many
other forces. The arrest of attention and the control of
men by the still, small voice of God when the overturnings
of the warrior have come to an end receive scant attention.
We must hear in mind, however, that in the period of which
we write that voice was heard. It was a period teeming
with events, mysteriously related, whose importance becomes
more clear as the world grows older.

In England the year 1832 brought the Reform Bill with
its vindication of the right of franchise, and 1833 saw the
abolition of slavery in the colonies ; an event which later
became a solid ground for moral pressure upon the United
States during the long struggle over the slavery question.
In 1837 Queen Victoria, that true and noble woman, came
to the throne. In Spain, 1833 saw the beginning of the
Carlist War, and thus in 1834 was brought about the aboli
tion of the Spanish Inquisition, a revolution whose effect
upon liberty of conscience was felt throughout the world.
In 1840 there was war between Great Britain and China. It
was a war of which the motives cannot, perhaps, bear much
investigation, but which began to rend the rock of Chinese
ignorance and prejudice; so giving opportunity for Christi
anity to find a foothold in the vast empire.

In the United States in 1832 New England echoed the
appeals of Wilberforce and his associates by establishing the
first anti-slavery society; and during this same period, when
churches throughout the country were giving freely to re
ligious enterprises, friends of science outside of the churches
were also moved to give, and in 1833 Girard College was

119

120 RESPONSIBILITIES FOLLOW [1832-

endowed, and in 1835 the Smithsonian Institution. In 1836
Mexico, the heir of great Spanish lands, had to yield a part
when Texas gained independence, and vainly begged admis
sion to the Union. It was in this same period that one of
the greatest steps toward a closer relation between nations
was gained by the invention of Morse's electric telegraph in

1837-

With the decision for extension abroad which the Ameri
can Bible Society adopted in this same period, are associated
not only improvements, advantages and progress, but unex
pected troubles. The Society had become a power for good
in the home land. It was noted as a successful maker of
books. It was known as energetic in seeking to supply the
destitute, and it won a liberal degree of support which at
tracted attention and even led some to declare that charitable
institutions were sucking the blood of the nation. To the
Society success gave a wider vision, and the fruit of such
success is normally new impulses toward helpfulness of
others. The successful benevolent society naturally tends
to attract congenial minds so that many become occupied in
fixing in permanent form those principles upon which it is
based. The plan of the cathedral is the work of one man,
but the erection of the noble structure represents the labour
and the sweat and skill of hundreds.

The period from 1832 to 1841 with the Bible Society
was a time for consolidation of its organization. There
were a number of changes in the home office. In 1832 the
Rev. S. H. Cone, D.D., Pastor of the First Baptist Church
in New York, became one of the Corresponding Secretaries.
He was a very able man, a successful and eloquent preacher,
and rendered good service to the Society during the three
years of his connection with it. He was an active member
of the Committee on Distribution and served with honour
on several special committees. In intellectual power he
was, perhaps, second only to Dr. Milnor, the Senior Secre
tary of the Society.

Mr. Hubert Van Wagenen, the Treasurer, resigned his
office in 1835 5 anc^ the General Agent, Mr. John Nitchie,
who had admirably conducted the work of his department
since 1819, was elected Treasurer in place of Mr. Van

1841] SOCIETY GREATLY STRENGTHENED 121

Wagenen, retaining the care of orders for books on the gen
eral depository. Mr. Robert Winslow, after four years of
service as Recording Secretary and Accountant, resigned
his position ; and the duties of the Accountant were passed
over to the Treasurer, while those connected with the print
ing and shipping of Scriptures, care of plates, etc., were
brought together again under charge of Air. Joseph Hyde,
chosen to be General Agent.

A little later (1840) the Rev. E. S. Janes, D.D., an emi-
ment Methodist Episcopal minister, was appointed Einancial
Secretary ; this new office involving extensive travels among
the churches to present the Bible cause and its needs more
thoroughly than had been done by Auxiliary Bible Societies.
Dr. Janes proved very efficient in this work, which he con
tinued until his election as a bishop of the Methodist Epis
copal Church.

Several occurrences outside of the usual sphere of action
of the Bible Society tended greatly to strengthen its power
of forceful action. Denominational questions had not, up
to this time, threatened much difficulty to the Board, but in
1834 one of the Auxiliary Societies felt difficulty in making
a free grant for Methodist Sunday Schools, that denomina
tion possessing a Bible Society of its own. The grant was
made but out of this incident sprang a discussion respecting
a possible union of the two Bible Societies. A year later,
in 1836, the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal
Church recommended that the Methodist Bible and Tract
Society be dissolved. It was an act of noble self-abnega
tion for the benefit of the American Bible Society and its
Auxiliaries, like that of a physician who gives over his pa
tients to a skilful specialist.

Another element of strength was added to the National
Society by the decision of the Pennsylvania Bible Society in
1840 to adopt the Auxiliary relationship. The Pennsyl
vania Society, formerly the Philadelphia Society, was or
ganised in 1808 and had done a noble work in the state of
Pennsylvania. It had also made liberal donations to the
American Bible Society, not feeling, however, that the
Auxiliary relationship would add anything to its power for
effective service. Under such circumstances this strong and

122 RESPONSIBILITIES FOLLOW [1832-

active Society received a warm welcome when formally de
clared a helper of the national Society.

Incorporation of the Society had been suggested by Dr.
Boudinot years before, but the suggestion had not been
adopted. Now, the Society was the owner of real estate in
New York City and elsewhere. To this it held title through
trustees whose names appeared in the title deeds as the
owners. Changes in the laws of New York state made
such tenure of real property quite uncertain ; and after some
difficulty the legislature of the state of New York finally
passed an act in 1841 incorporating the American Bible
Society.

A good deal of enthusiasm was aroused in the Board,
after the decision to take up foreign work, by expressions of
satisfaction with which the decision was received. Rev.
Mr. Patton, travelling for the Society in the Southern
States, wrote from Alabama in 1832: "So far as I have
gone I have found friends everywhere prepared to see the
American Bible Society stretch her arms all around the
earth." And Rev. Mr. Winslow, of the American Board's
Mission in South India, wrote: " It is a noble thought, we
might almost say a divine thought, to give the Bible to every
family under heaven."

Yet the Board of Managers very soon found that expan
sion multiplies anxieties ; that is to say, the larger the field
the more demands are made upon sympathy, intelligence and
activity. As soon as it became noised abroad that the So
ciety was prepared to aid the American missions, the most
moving appeals came from India, China, the Sandwich Is
lands, as well as from South America. It soon appeared
that the destitute to be supplied were increased immeasur
ably by this decision. In China it was known that at least
one-fourth of the population of the globe had no Bibles ; that
in India there were nearly or quite three hundred million
pagans destitute of the Scriptures ; that the vast continent of
Africa, utterly unknown at that time, contained another mass
of destitution fearful to conterhplate.

In such circumstances there was little satisfaction in lay
ing plans. They must be tentative ; difficulties, unexpected
objections would multiply; the world's inheritance from the

1841] HELPERS THAT CAUSE ANXIETY 123

tower of Babel barred access to multitudes of people. In
short the Society found itself in the position of a man who
has inherited a vast estate which must be cultivated and
kept up because he is responsible for it.

One of the greatest anxieties was the condition of some
of the helper Societies. If the helper does not help, it be
comes a millstone about the neck of the one who has en
couraged it to live. Of course a considerable number of
these Societies were models in the matter of efficient and
untiring labour ; but one-half or more were in a state de
manding constant attention. Many of them came into ex
istence during the period of the General Supply of the desti
tute, after 1829. When this effort was commenced almost
every Auxiliary Society received a new and powerful im
pulse. Many individuals in different communities waked
up to a sense of the value of the effort to distribute the Bible.
One man attracted by the work done by Auxiliary Societies
in his vicinity, calculated in dollars and cents how much the
Bible had been to him throughout his life; and he imme
diately contributed five thousand dollars to the fund for sup
plying all the destitute, as being arrears of his dues on ac
count of gains.

On the other hand one of the evil results of this great ef
fort was that the lavish distribution of Scriptures among
the destitute, and the abundant aid given to weak Auxiliary
Societies for this work cultivated a love for the luxury of
dependence. Errors of judgment on the part of those who
would engage in Bible work caused great annoyance, and the
blame of such mistakes reacted upon the Board. Sometimes
an Auxiliary announced in its field that it would supply all
the destitute, and began the work without making sure of a
supply of books large enough to complete it. Or a society
ordered books for the supply and after they arrived dis
covered that it had no one who could possibly attend to the
work of distribution. Such occurrences led to repetitions of
the common sense suggestion that Auxiliary Societies have
a care to appoint efficient officers for their work. Later a
Committee on Agencies was appointed by the Board of
Managers especially to see to the efficient operation of the
Auxiliary Bible Societies.

i24 RESPONSIBILITIES FOLLOW [1832-

It should not be understood that what has been said
diminishes in any sense the value of the work of active
Auxiliary Bible Societies in the United States. Instances
of most valuable work even by small Auxiliaries abound.
In 1833 the use of the Erie Canal \vas proving it a main
artery for commerce and travel. The Oneida County, New
York, Bible Society, finding some fifteen hundred canal boats
passing and repassing Utica, and conveying during one year
from one hundred and fifty thousand to one hundred and
seventy-five thousand passengers, chiefly immigrants going
to the West, turned its energies upon supplying New Testa
ments or Bibles to the people on the canal boats, including
the eight thousand or more men regularly employed in this
traffic. Another little Auxiliary Society at Strafford, New
Hampshire, in five years spent nearly three thousand dollars
in distributing Scriptures among more than two thousand
families in the county and supplying some six thousand chil
dren with the New Testament.

The Young Men's New York Bible Society, as soon as the
decision was made to take up work abroad, sent word to
the Board of Managers that it would undertake to raise ten
thousand dollars in New York City to be used for supplying
Chinese Scriptures to Dr. Charles Gutzlaff. The Board, in
thanking the Society for this offer, suggested that the special
designation to Dr. Gutzlaff might prove to be a hampering
limitation. It informed the Young Men's Society, how
ever, that if the limitation was removed so that the money
could be used where most needed, in China or elsewhere, the
Board of Managers would certainly use in China from the
money thus contributed the amount necessary to fill up the
appropriation for Chinese Scriptures just decided upon; and
that it would relinquish its intention of making a special ap
peal in New York for the support of foreign distribution in
that year ; and furthermore would use its endeavours to aid
the Young Men's Society in raising the ten thousand dollars
proposed.

The Young Men's Society then requested the Board of
Managers to pass a formal resolution covering this state
ment. The Board therefore adopted the following resolu
tion : " Resolved : that, confiding in the exertions of the

1841] EFFORTS TO ANIMATE INACTIVE 125

Young Men's New York Bible Society, this Board will re
linquish the city of New York to them for the purpose of
raising funds during the current year for the distribution of
the Bible in foreign fields ; and do hereby commend the
Young Men's Society in their undertaking in this behalf to
the friends of the Bible in that city." 1

Nevertheless the Society deemed it necessary at its An
nual Meeting, May 14, 1835, to censure careless Auxiliaries,
saying that while some of them had done good work during
the year in Bible distribution, it was evident that other Socie
ties had " greatly neglected this important duty," and it
earnestly requested such Societies to procure Scriptures
without delay and see that every dwelling in their fields was
furnished with a copy.

One of the measures adopted for the purpose of ani
mating inactive Societies was the appointment of Travelling
Agents assigned to the work of encouraging and stirring up
the Auxiliaries in different districts. In 1840 there had
been for ten years from ten to fifteen agents engaged in the
specific work of keeping Auxiliary Societies alert and ef
ficient. The Board of Managers had many times considered
the question whether this large expense was justified.
There was a distinct tendency to diminish the number of
agents in the hope that the enthusiasm of the new undertak
ings in Bible distribution at home and abroad would furnish
all the necessary incitement to the Auxiliaries.

The question was frequently asked, however, in the midst
of these perplexities, why should the Society not dispense
with the Auxiliaries entirely? It was felt by the members
of the Board, however, that, as Dr. Brigham. expressed it in
the Annual Report for 1836, this idea is a great mistake.
The national Society has no funds for its undertaking; nor
has it the agents, if the wants of the country are to be met,
to perform a thousandth part of the labour requisite for the
collection of funds and the distribution of books. This
work must be done by local Societies, and mostly by the un
paid exertions of their devoted members. The Managers
in the midst of forebodings that the Auxiliary system was

1 Managers Minutes, Volume 5, p. 116.

126 RESPONSIBILITIES FOLLOW [1832-

more or less of a failure, had to admit that no other system
had yet been devised so well calculated as that of Auxiliary
Societies for the supply of Scriptures to the needy.

Anxieties concerning the Bible distribution at home be
came more pressing as the number of immigrants increased
from year to year. The Society took pains to supply Auxil
iary Societies at the points of landing of the immigrants,
and also at several points along the lines of travel to the
westward, as in the case of Utica just mentioned, and at
Pittsburg in Pennsylvania, and Wheeling in Virginia, and
Natchez and New Orleans on the Mississippi. In 1835
grants made to sixteen different Auxiliaries at points where
foreigners first touch the United States amounted to two
thousand, three hundred and seventy-five Bibles and four
thousand Testaments. Five hundred dollars was sent to the
French and Foreign Bible Society to enable it to supply
emigrants sailing from Havre.

The question of languages for the immigrants soon became
a serious one. Scriptures in the European languages were
commonly purchased from the British and Foreign Bible
Society ; German and Spanish Scriptures being printed, how
ever, in New York. In 1836, Scriptures for immigrants
were ordered from Europe in Italian, Portuguese, Swedish,
Danish, Dutch and Welsh. In 1837 the Society, at its An
nual Meeting, passed a resolution stating the great impor
tance to the country of supplying immigrants with the Scrip
tures since " the rapid influx of these foreigners, mostly
without the Bible, will make them a danger to the country
while in this condition." From this point began a syste
matic work for the immigrants on the part of the Society
which has taken on enormous proportions, and has placed
the Society in the position of carrying on foreign mis
sion work in the home land as well as abroad.

More and more urgent appeals for aid in supplying the
destitute throughout the United States poured in as the
years passed. At the twenty-third Annual Meeting of the
Society in May, 1839, on motion of Rev. Sylvester Holmes
of New Bedford, Massachusetts, seconded by the Hon. Wil
liam H. Seward, it was resolved to recommend to the Auxil
iaries to commence a second General Supply and prosecute

1841] REPUBLICAN INSTITUTIONS 127

it with vigour. Governor Seward, in supporting this mo
tion, made the pertinent remark that he knew not how long
a republican government could flourish among the people
who had not the Bible. The experiment had never been
tried, but this he did know ; that the existing government of
the United States could never have had existence but for
the Bible, and further, he did in his conscience believe that
" if at every decade of years a copy of the Bible should be
found in every family of the land, its republican institutions
would be perpetuated."

The choice of the Bible Society to extend its field indefi
nitely abroad, while weighed down by the burdens of the
great field of the United States, set before it a future most
strenuous in its demands for determination, perseverance,
and uninterrupted prayer-life. By undertaking to serve all
American evangelistic efforts, by aiming to circulate the
Bible in all languages abroad as well as at home as soon as
need or opportunity appears, the Society had been follow
ing the path trodden by the Master. Like Him the So
ciety would meet opposition, fatigue, demands upon its
strength, physical, mental and spiritual; but like Him it
would be fed as well as feed others through doing the
will of God for the benefit of thousands and tens of thou
sands.

CHAPTER XVII

VENTURES IX LANGUAGES

IT is said that the people in some of the islands of the
New Hebrides are divided into separate and often hostile
groups by different languages, so that the villagers on one
side of a mountain are not able to understand the people
in villages on the other side of the mountain. The result is
that the two mountain sides are often at war with each
other. Among uncivilised tribes in different parts of the
world difference in languages fosters suspicion and encour
ages enmity. The Germans and the Slavs are commonly
spoken of as opposed to one another. In looking back over
their history it seems probable that difference of language
has had much to do with this opposition. The. name ap
plied of old by Slavs to Germans is " Niemtzi," which is
equivalent to calling them " dummies " because they could
not speak Slavic. Since men look askance at those who
speak an unknown language, Babel is a bar to Missions.

On the other hand missionaries can make Babel serve God.
Knowledge of the language of the people to whom they are
sent is in some degree a key to the gates which Babel
guards. How far this is true appears in a little incident re
ported a few years ago by a Bible Agent in California. He
saw a Hindu working in a field by the roadside and shouted
a salutation to him in Hindustani. The Hindu immediately
dropped his hoe and ran towards the stranger who could
speak his home language. His employer called to him to
come back and go on with his work. The Hindu called
back : " I can't work, my brother has come." He had
never seen the missionary before, whose use of Hindustani
made him seem like a brother. The mastery of an alien
language by a missionary attracts attention, opens doors,
levels false distinctions and cultivates friendship. If the

128

1841] COMPLEX PROBLEMS OF BABEL 129

Master has sent the missionary as His ambassador the chief
duty of the messenger is to speak, and when he speaks in the
language of the country it is only a step further to make
him a voice crying in the wilderness, " Prepare ye the way
of the Lord ! " So that if Babel is a bar to missions, the
languages of Babel clear a way by which the truth of Christi
anity finds its target. The Zulus in South Africa are often
known to buy the Bible in Zulu for the sole reason that it is a
book, and in their own language. A great truth is hidden in
that sentence of Lloyd : " Speech was made to open man to
man."

One great principle guided and compelled the action of
the Bible Society in the matter of its ventures in foreign
languages. This principle was that it is impossible to train
any community in virtue without the Bible. Had the Board
wished to hold back from extensive work in different lan
guages abroad, the pressure at home would have compelled it
to reconsider the situation. Immigrants speaking many
diverse tongues were flowing into the country, and by 1835
the Society found itself obliged to supply for immigrants
alone Scriptures in almost a dozen different languages. As
has already been noted the existence of people speaking
Spanish and French in the United States was one of the
influences which led the Society to work abroad.

But as soon as the Society began to print in French and in
Spanish it found the people asking for a Roman Catholic
Version of the Bible, thus raising a serious difficulty. The
Roman Catholic Versions not only contain the Apocrypha,
which can be separated from the Canonical books, but they
are all based upon the Vulgate Version and not upon the
originals. The translation of St. Jerome contains no inten
tional divergencies from the Hebrew and the Greek. For
this reason the Board of Managers saw little objection to its
use, while the fact that Roman Catholics would use the
Vulgate versions was a strong argument in favour of their
publication by the Bible Society. The Board had to choose
between two roads ; one blocked, or at least obstructed and
the other leading smoothly straight to the objective of Bible
circulation in Latin America. In the first quarter of the
nineteenth century, so far as Roman Catholic nations were

130 VENTURES IN LANGUAGES [1832-

concerned, it would be necessary to give them the Vulgate
Bible or to leave them entirely without the Bible.

The story of the issue of the Scio Spanish Version by the
Society has appeared in an earlier chapter. As late as the
year 1839 a question of the propriety of using Vulgate ver
sions having been brought before the Board of Managers, a
decision was reached that these versions could be tolerated.
When it was proposed, however, to publish the Douay Ver
sion in English for the use of English speaking Roman
Catholics in the United States, the question took an en
tirely different form. The constitution of the Society says
definitely that its publications in the English language shall
conform to the version in common use ; that is, the Author
ised Version. And when it was decided that the Douay
Version in English could not be printed by the Society, the
propriety was questioned of printing any version that could
not be classed among the most accurate. The Society was
attacked in the press and on the platform for violating its
constitution. It was shown that the circulation of the Bible
among Roman Catholics had not been by any means limited
to the circulation of editions that follow the Vulgate.
Finally in 1841 the Board of Managers retraced its steps
and decided that no versions from the Vulgate may be
printed by the Society. The existing plates of the Scio
Spanish Version were finally melted down and sold as type
metal. The place of the Scio version was taken by the
Valera version, a Spanish translation made in 1602 from
the original tongues ; and it is this version, with various re
visions of style, which has been the principal version cir
culated in Spanish-speaking countries by the Society. After
1885 an alternative version known as the " Version Mod-
erna " was issued, being prepared by Rev. H. B. Pratt, D.D.

In 1835, after the decision had proved wise to aid Ameri
can Missions abroad, the Board sent a circular to foreign
mission stations informing American missionaries of the
different denominations that whenever the Old Testament or
the New Testament or any entire Gospel or other book of
the Bible is correctly translated into any foreign language
and ready to be printed, missionaries, on giving intelligence
of this to the Bible Society, may expect to receive the aid

1841] STEPS TOWARD TRANSLATION 131

requisite for its publication ; and any information com
municated by the missionaries concerning Bible transla
tion or the best mode of receiving Scriptures in their vicin
ity, or any suggestion whatsoever in the interests of the
Bible cause would be carefully considered by the Board.

Later the Board announced the class of expenditures
connected with the preparation and distribution of the Scrip
tures in foreign languages which the Society could con
sistently defray. These expenditures included first, the cost
of printing approved versions of the Scriptures, comprising
the cost of paper, of superintendence and correction, and of
binding; second, the cost of purchasing Scriptures for dis
tribution, where versions have already been published ; third,
the cost of newly translating and revising the Scriptures in
cases where these undertakings seem to be expedient ; and
fourth, the cost of transporting and distributing the Scrip
tures under the direction of missionaries or Bible Society
Agents. It need not be said that the agents would, of
course, be supported entirely by the Bible Society.

These decisions of the Board, simple and natural though
they were, committed the Society to a great and important
work in many different languages.

Up to this time the Bible had been translated into about
one hundred and eighty languages. Out of these the Ameri
can Bible Society had printed or circulated about twenty.
And now there came, as if in answer to an announcement by
a benevolent millionaire, urgent appeals from over the seas
for help in printing or in translating the Scriptures. From
the Sandwich Islands, Dr. Green wrote : :< The isles wait
for His law ! " From India Mr. Scudder wrote that in the
region immediately about him were five hundred thousand
families whose language he could speak, but who had no
Bibles. " Will not the American Bible Society supply these
five hundred thousand families," he asked, " with the New
Testament or at least with one Gospel each in the space of
the next two or three years ? " Mr. Winslow, writing from
an adjacent field in South India, let his thoughts carry him
back to the days of the wandering Israelites when a pesti
lence was abroad in the camp punishing the people for their
sins, and Aaron ran in to stay the plague. " The Mission-

132 VENTURES IN LANGUAGES [1832-

aries," he said, " have been placed under the responsibility
of standing between dying men and Him with whom they
have to do. So we feel constrained to call upon you to fill
the censers which are in our hands with the fire and incense
that we may run quickly unto the people and stay the plague
which is abroad among them ! " Mr. Bridgman, writing
from China, repeatedly and vigorously urged the Bible So
ciety to take up the supply of Scriptures for the Chinese,
because no other one question of equal gravity could pos
sibly come before the Board. Then, as if to hasten the de
cision of the Society, careful estimates were sent on, com
paring the different methods of printing in Chinese; whether
by wood cut blocks or by lithography, or by metal type. In
either case the cost at that time would be enormous, because
the Chinese Government would not allow the printing by
foreigners in China of anything in the Chinese language, and
all apparatus, together with the skilled workmen required,
would have to be transferred to Singapore, out of the reach
of the old Chinese conservatives.

One call from abroad which particularly moved the
American public was that already mentioned for a New
Testament in Modern Greek to be used in the newly estab
lished kingdom of Greece. This was urged by the Secre
taries of the A. B. C. F. M. who pointed out that the British
and Foreign Bible Society was printing the Old Testament
in Modern Greek ; that the version then existing of the New
Testament was not satisfactory ; that the American Bible
Society might safely take in hand the making of a new ver
sion in this language, printing a tentative edition, and after
the test had been made and corrections attended to, the
stereotype plates could be quickly prepared. This Greek
Testament was finished in 1833. During the' next fifteen
years it was sent out in large numbers to Dr. King of the A.
B. C. F. M., and Dr. Robertson of the Protestant Episcopal
Mission in Greece, and to Mr. Brewer of the A. B. C. F. M.
at Smyrna in Turkey. The use of these plates was then dis
continued.

Up to the end of its fifteenth year the Society had granted
to American Missions abroad for printing and circulation of
Scriptures in foreign languages eighteen hundred dollars.

1841] BIBLE TRANSLATION 133

At the end of its twentieth year one hundred and four thou
sand, four hundred dollars had been added to this amount.
The grants to American Missions abroad for printing and
distributing Scriptures in ten languages at the end of the
twenty-fifth year had reached a total of one hundred and
eighty-eight thousand, nine hundred and fifty dollars.

The provision of Scriptures in foreign languages is of
greatest importance in the eyes of a Bible Society. Skilled
translators have to be found, and arrangements made for
properly printing and binding the Scriptures when they are
translated. It is always necessary to remember when look
ing at Bible work in foreign lands that nothing whatever can
be done until the Bible is translated into the tongue of the
people. This implies very slow progress but the delay, like
that in building a temple, must not dampen ardour since time
is needed for laying foundations for the future.

This work in foreign languages is not only of great impor
tance but of the most solemn responsibility. Typographical
errors may corrupt the . text while in the hands of the
printers. It is conceivable that conflicting opinions of trans
lators might colour the version ; or that a too sensitive criti
cism might mutilate a translation which is to be sent forth
in a foreign language. In all questions of the accuracy and
propriety of versions the Bible Society must satisfy itself,
for it will be held responsible for whatever goes forth pub
lished in its name. For this reason all who receive aid
from the Bible Society in the \vork of translation are
warned against following individual preference as to ex
pression lest this add to or take from the originals. The re
sponsibility of the Bible Society for the English version is
everywhere understood. As President J. Cotton Smith re
marked in his address at the Annual Meeting' of the Society
in 1836: :< The Society is charged with the preservation,
not only of the truths of the English Bible but of its precise
language." An interdenominational Society only can prop
erly secure the text against alteration ; it being a body trusted
by all denominations, it watches over the inviolability of the
text. A copy bearing the imprint of such a Society is of
guaranteed authenticity.

The text of the English Version is now, therefore, safer

134 VENTURES IN LANGUAGES [1832-

than for centuries before the organisation of the British and
Foreign Bible Society. The first English Bible, that of
Coverdale printed in Zurich in 1536, had no protection ex
cepting the good intention of those who printed its different
editions, against error or purposeful change. The King
James Version, issued in 1611, was printed and reprinted
during two hundred years before any general and thor
oughly effective system protected it from mistakes and vari
ations. Only after Bible Societies became established could
one feel that an authoritative control guaranteed the new
editions as they came from the press.

The Bible Society has, besides the function of watching
over the accuracy of the text of the Bible, the opportunity
of improving and ennobling the languages in which it pub
lishes the Bible. Language is the dress of thought, Dr.
Johnson used to say.- One of the great services to the
world performed by Bible translators and Bible distributors
is their taking a language which is the dress of miserable,
impoverished and perhaps vile thought, and putting into it
the noble, pure and inspiring thought that fills the Bible.
The work of the translator is necessarily slow. He finds
difficulties in himself, in his own scholarship which has to
be carried to a very high point in order justly to carry
through the work which he undertakes. He finds the work
a heavy responsibility for he is dealing not with his own
words, but with words whose truths, relations and sugges
tions must be accurately carried over into the language into
which he translates them. This part of the process is that
suggested by Horace when he describes a skilful writer
" whose dexterous setting makes an old word new." The
work of the translator frequently becomes a work of purify
ing a language by filling words with new meaning and un
wonted beauty, just as the slow drudgery of the diamond
cutter brings out the full splendour of a gem which was
hardly more than a pebble.

Aiding the missions along the lines marked out at the
beginning, now making a new version possible by money
support to a translator, now paying for new editions issued
by a mission printing press, by the end of its twenty-fifth
year the Society had fostered Bible versions not only in the

1841] FRUITFULNESS OF THE VENTURES 135

Mohawk, the Ojibwa, the Cherokee, Seneca, Delaware and
Choctaw for the American Indians, but it had authorised
printing at its expense in Turkish, Armenian, Hebrew-Span
ish, Siamese, Chinese, Hindustani, Tamil, Telugu, Uriye,
Grebo (West Africa) and Hawaiian. The Society had thus
rounded out the sphere of its activities as seen afar in the
vision of its founders. For a Bible Society by printing the
Scriptures in many different tongues wields a God-given
power, and brings nearer the time when every considerable
race of men will rejoice to read in their own tongue wherein
they were born, the wonderful works of God.

CHAPTER XVIII

INDIVIDUALISM IN DEMOCRACY

THE general expectation of Europe respecting the Repub
lic of the United States in its early days was that individual
convictions too strongly rooted to be subordinated to the
good of the nation would some day set aside the principle
of decision by majority vote. This would rend the Union so
that all semblance of cohesion between its parts must dis
appear.

Curiously enough by the time the Society had reached
its twentieth year a similar test of cohesion had been ap
plied, in a small way^ to its management. Had not the
purpose of the Society been grand enough to hold control
over the personal views of its members, keeping them loyal
to the federation ; had not some members for the sake of
this loyalty, sacrificed personal convictions, it is quite pos
sible that this story would not have been written, and the
views of European monarchists about democracy would have
been justified so far as permanence of the federation in the
Bible Society was concerned.

During this period the question of slavery more and
more occupied the minds of men. It was gradually becom
ing a test of the ability of good men patiently to set aside
their personal views for the sake of the future of the na
tion. Little by little the question became a question of con
science. In the Northern States the influence of the sup
pression of slavery in the colonies of Great Britain, and
the arguments of Wilberforce which led up to this result
had great influence in awakening the consciences of the peo
ple. Of course the same literature was in the hands of the
people of the Southern States, but their whole system of
agriculture and thus their general interests depended upon
the continuance of slavery.

136

1832-1841] THE SOCIETY'S PROPOSAL 137

With the Missouri Compromise a divergence between the
North and the South was acknowledged and a system adopted
for preserving between the two sections a balance of power.
Possibly the issue might have been different had there been
intercourse between the Northern and Southern States, but
the means of travel were few. People of the masses dis
cussed this matter at a distance, as if each had been seated
on the top of a high mountain shouting across the interval
instead of getting together in the valley good-humouredly to
arrange their differences.

The man of one idea on both sides now came to the front
of the crowd — the man who knows that the fragment of
truth which he has grasped is of supreme importance to
the world ; who resents every proffer of direction or advice,
but claims the right to advise and direct authoritatively all
of his opponents. He is the man whom the European mon
archists had in mind when they prophesied the failure of
American democracy. It was his influence in either of the
two hotly disputing parties which finally led to the announce
ment of the doctrine that men who are disappointed by the
result of the ballot may bodily withdraw from the National
union and execute by themselves the plans defeated at the
polls.

With the terrible Civil War which years later washed out
in blood this doctrine we have nothing here to do. What
concerns us is the strain upon the principle of democracy
in the management of the American Bible Society which
reached the danger point in this period of our present
narrative. In 1834, just in the warmest part of the excite
ment in New York concerning abolitionists and their sup
pression, a delegation from the American Anti-Slavery So
ciety appeared before the Board of Managers with a proposal
to raise five thousand dollars if the Bible Society would set
apart twenty thousand dollars for putting a Bible into every
coloured family in the United States in two years' time from
July 4th, 1834.

A natural desire existed among members of the Board
and Christians everywhere to have the Bible opened before
the slaves. The Book has a message of manliness for all
who read it. But on the other hand the members of this

138 INDIVIDUALISM IN DEMOCRACY [1832-

delegation must have known that an attempt by the Bible
Society to send agents to every negro hut in the South would
be violently opposed ; and even if the Bible agents reached
the slave's quarters, hardly two per cent, of the coloured
people could read the book set before them.

The Board of Managers were in a dilemma. The propo
sal, like a handful of sand thrown into the lubricating oil of
a steam engine, might cause a wreck. The Society has
no right to interfere with any man's politics or religious
belief, but any refusal on this ground to send Scriptures
to the slaves when money was offered for the purpose would
l)e called proof by some that the Board was without feeling.
If, however, the offer of the Anti-Slavery Society should
be accepted, the two hundred or more Auxiliaries of the So
ciety in the Southern States, deeply offended at such an
interference, might resist the action of the Board.

It was perfectly clear, moreover, that there was no escape
from dissension within the Board, if this specific proposal
were to call for ayes and nays. Mr. Arthur Tappan, the
president of the Anti-Slavery Society, had been a member
of the Board, and was highly respected by his old associates
there. The welfare of the whole enterprise of the Bible
Society at this point depended upon the discovery of a
general principle upon which all could unite and which would,
by itself, settle the question proposed by the Anti-Slavery
Society.

The case before the Board was like the question of build
ing a new schoolhouse before a town meeting. The project
winning the majority of votes must be a final decision,
whether all liked it or not. It is a misfortune, of course,
for the man of one idea not to convince his associates ; but
whoever imagines that he has a monopoly of truth finds
himself in a lonely path. The rule of such a compact as
that of this interdenominational Society must include self-
abnegation for the sake of achieving the one object of the
compact.

After considerable discussion the Board of Managers
found the principle governing this case. It adopted the two
following resolutions :

" RESOLVED that the Managers of this Society, pursuing

1841] THE ANSWER OF THE BOARD 139

the great Catholic object which they have ever had in view,
viz., the circulation of the Holy Scriptures without note or
comment among their destitute fellow men of every name
and nation wherever they can be reached, will thankfully
receive the contributions of all societies and individuals
who may be disposed to co-operate with them in their benevo
lent undertaking.

" RESOLVED that while Bibles and Testaments \vill always
be furnished at the lowest prices to Auxiliary Societies for
distribution and even furnished gratuitously when necessary
for the supply of the needy, yet the direct labour of the
distribution of these books as well as the responsibility of
selecting the proper families and individuals within their
respective limits who are to receive them, must, heretofore,
be left wholly to the wisdom and piety of those who compose
these local associations in the different States and Terri
tories."

This action was unimpeachable and peace remained with
the Board, which, being composed of diverse elements united
in a great common purpose, did not enter into controversy
concerning details governed by the rule. A year later the
Anti-Slavery Society made an offer again of five thousand
dollars which it would give to the American Bible Society
in order to foster distribution of Scriptures among the slaves
in the South. The Board of Managers, however, had no
different answer to make than the one previously given ;
but in the most friendly manner they showed the reports of
the Auxiliaries in the South pointing out what they had done
and were steadily attempting to do.

From what has been said it will be obvious that the Board
of Managers has had to decide questions of magnitude be
yond the competence of any individual member. In the dis
cussion of delicate and divisive questions its only safety is
in following the rule just illustrated.

Another question, which proved controversial and occu
pied the Board during more than six months, came up the
next year (1835). It grew out of a very simple and innocent
proposal. The Rev. Mr. Pearse, a missionary in Calcutta,
asked aid from the Society for printing the Scriptures in
the Bengali language. In order to ensure favourable ac-

140

INDIVIDUALISM IN DEMOCRACY [1832-

tion by the Board, Mr. Pearse added that the British and
Foreign Bible Society had advised him to apply to the Amer
ican Society which would probably grant his request. Mr.
Pearse stated, however, that the British Society would not
grant his request for aid because in translating the New
Testament he had rendered the Greek word baptiso by a
Bengali word meaning " immerse." The Board of Man
agers followed its usual method in referring the application
to the Committee on Distribution, and passed on to other
matters.

The Committee on Distribution reported in due time, ad
vising that aid could not be granted since the translation
did not seem to agree with the usual practice of the Society.
Some objection was made to the views of the Distribution
Committee, and the Board, with due respect for those who
raised the objection, referred the report to a special commit
tee composed of one member from each of the seven de
nominations then represented in the Board of Managers.
This Committee considered the question with prudent de
liberation, and finally brought in a report confirming the
decision of the Committee on Distribution that aid should
not be granted for the publication of the Bengali Testament
translated by Mr. Pearse. This decision had the support
of six of the seven members of the Special Committee ; Sec
retary S. H. Cone, the Baptist member, offering a written
expression of entire dissent from the action.

In ordinary cases a report presenting the view of so large
a majority of a committee would be adopted by the Board
without much discussion ; but this report was laid on the table
for consideration at the next meeting. Meanwhile a num
ber of letters came to the Board, some warmly favouring
and others equally warmly protesting against the adoption
of the Committee's report. Among others Rev. Dr. Francis
Way land of Brown University, a Life Member and one of
the warm friends of the American Bible Society, wrote to
Secretary Brigham urging that a principle be laid down which
would apply not to an application from one denomination
only, but to all applications for aid. With such a principle
established a detail like Mr. Pease's application would settle
itself.

1841] QUALITY OF THE SOCIETY 141

This wise suggestion was timely. Secretary Milnor, who
was eminently capable of analysing and clearly setting forth
principles, wrote and offered to the Board, Nov. 19, 1835,
such a resolution, as follows :

'* RESOLVED, that in appropriating money for the translat
ing, printing or distributing of the Sacred Scriptures in for
eign languages the Managers feel at liberty to encourage
only such versions as in the principle of their translation
conform to the common English version, at least so far that
all the religious denominations represented in this Society
can consistently use and circulate said versions in their sev
eral schools and communities."

This resolution, having the cordial approval of distin
guished Baptist friends of the Society, was considered by the
Board and brought to a vote on the 17th of February, 1836.
A number of ministers who as Life Members were entitled
to vote in the Board were present and the resolution was
adopted by a vote of thirty yeas and fourteen nays. This
principle has been followed ever since by the American Bible
Society in making its appropriations for Bible translation.

The Board of Managers now sent the resolution adopted
on the i/th of February to all of the missionary societies ac
customed to look for aid to the American Bible Society, ac
companying it by an official notice that applications for aid
for translating or printing Scriptures should carry with them
a statement that the principle of this resolution will be ob
served. The resolution was agreed to by all of the societies
addressed excepting the Baptist Missionary Society; and
money which had been granted by the Board for the use of
Baptist missions in Burma was declined as not acceptable on
the condition which had been laid down by the Board. The
Board very naturally regretted extremely the feeling which
had been called up in connection with its decision ; but clearly
the question really was : can the American Bible Society
publish Bibles varying from the standard, according to the
peculiar views of Methodists, or Presbyterians, or Episco
palians, or Baptists ? It is clear that decision by the Board
to print a Bible which one denomination alone could use
must ultimately overthrow this interdenominational Society.

The Baptist Board of Missions at the same time (April,

142 INDIVIDUALISM IN DEMOCRACY [1832-

1836) adopted the following resolution setting forth the
principles that should guide its translation of Scripture into
foreign languages : " RESOLVED, that the missionaries of the
Board who are or who shall be engaged in translating the
Scriptures be instructed to endeavour by earnest prayer and
diligent study to ascertain the exact meaning of the original
text; to express that meaning as exactly as the nature of
the language into which they shall translate the Bible will
permit and to transfer no words which are capable of being
literally translated."

This resolution might be said to agree in principle with
the views of the American Bible Society. The only point
of difference concerns the question as to whether a word
is or is not capable of literal translation. The Board pre
fers, however, to commit such a sacred work, whenever
possible, to a committee rather than to a single individual.
In cases of difference of opinion its rule follows the principle
of democracy, considering the vote of a majority decisive in
cases where good men hold divergent views as to rendering
any passage in the original language.

Early in May, 1836, the Rev. Dr. Cone resigned his posi
tion as Corresponding Secretary of the American Bible So
ciety and the same week became President of the " American
and Foreign Bible Society," a new organism established
to carry out the ideas which the American Bible Society
could not. Of this Society the Corresponding Secretary
was the Rev. C. G. Sommers, who had been for some years
Secretary for Domestic Correspondence of the American
Bible Society.

Deeply as the members of the Board regretted this dis
cord, they rejoiced in the sympathy of a considerable num
ber of their Baptist friends. Baptists then and ever since
have worked fraternally with the Auxiliary Societies and
have taken part in the management of the national Society as
members of the Board. A number of years later Rev. Dr.
Francis Wayland published in the Christian Watchman and
Reflector * a review of this whole affair so far as he was
connected with it ; and he closed his article with the declara-

1 August 10, 1866.

1841] COURTESY TO BAPTIST SOCIETIES 143

tion : " I cannot perceive how, consistently with the prin
ciples of its constitution, the Bible Society could have adopted
any other rule. It is equally required by the dictates of
justice and common sense, and it breathes the spirit of
fraternal equality and Christian courtesy. It has, therefore,
my cheerful and unwavering support." Some years later
definite charges of unfairness were made in Baptist news
papers against the Managers of the Bible Society. These
charges were fully discussed and refuted in a paper published
with the Annual Report of 1841 (page 109) and this mention
must suffice in this place.1

1 It is only proper to add that since these incidents the American
Bible Society lias been glad, as ever, to make grants of money or of
Scriptures to Baptist Societies, missions and congregations.

CHAPTER XIX

AGENTS IN PARTIBUS

A CAPITALIST in New York who invests in a gold-mining
enterprise in Australia or even in Colorado will feel uneasy
if the success of his venture depends in any degree upon a
prospectus. The Board of Managers of the Society had now
reached a point in its ventures abroad where it needed to be
in closer touch with foreign affairs. The formal adoption
of the fields of American missionaries in India, China, Tur
key, and other lands piled responsibility high upon the shoul
ders of the Managers. As the central missionary idea of
a Bible Society finds fuller expression, the idea itself grows
like a living thing.

In the foreign field hitherto the action of the Bible Society
had been more or less sporadic and its results had not been
reported in much detail. In 1834 the Board reported that
during the year just passed it had sent Scriptures into
Canada, Mexico, different parts of South America, to France,
Russia and Greece, to India, Ceylon, Burma, Java and China,
to Africa and to the Sandwich Islands. About the same
time another letter from Archdeacon Wix at St. Johns, New
foundland, set forth the needs of the fishermen of Labra
dor, a grant was promptly made to him. Rev. E. Stally-
brass, a missionary of the London Missionary Society, was
printing an Old Testament in the Mongolian of Lake Baikal.
He asked aid and the Board sent him one thousand dollars.
So every now and then Spanish Scriptures were sent to
Havana, to Mexico City and to Colombia. Each shipment
was made in conscientious solicitude ; but every one of those
parcels of books was like a bullet fired at a venture. It was
very hard to guess whether the mark was hit.

The Board of Managers was a good deal in the position of
men making preparations for a journey to a far country.

144

1832-1841] ACTIVITIES ABROAD 145

There was need for study of the lands and their people, of
economic methods, and of measures for securing steady
progress. Equipment, resources and helpers must be
looked after. The people among whom it was going to
work, their environment and the conditions of life must be
known ; and then the Board found itself in the predicament
of the wise man who said, "It is easier to be wise for others
than for oneself." In fact the members of the Board were
in appalling ignorance of the actual requirements of the
task which had been given them. But they had faith, and
in such a case wisdom comes " like waters that refresh the
earth, some bursting forth from below but the best and
purest coming down from heaven."

The reports of the missionaries which led to the decision
to participate in foreign work gave a thrilling interest to this
undertaking of the Society. Calls kept coming from
regions entirely beyond reach for aid which would commit
the Society to large expense, forecasts of which must largely
rest on faith rather than on discretion. Money was to be
furnished the missions for the distribution of Scriptures.
Somebody must pick the men who would be sent out with
Bibles to distribute. Somebody must be sure that men of
a single purpose were selected so that no mingling of acts
with mere good intentions should confuse the purpose of
their lives. Distribution is a word easily said. In real ac
tion that word covers opposition and even violence from
men who know not the Bible, together with triumphant
conquest over self on the part of the workers and unspeak
able weariness which faith alone restrains from the Slough
of Despond.

Then again the Board of Managers must be assured, in
giving money for translation, that those who are to translate
the Bible are fit. It must be fully guaranteed against their
having mistaken their calling through " being stung by the
splendour of a thought." Life in man cannot be measured
or defined ; it is a wonder beyond analysis. So, beyond all
analysis is the life pulsing in the words of the Bible; words
transferred, still pulsing, from language to language when
the translator is filled with his Bible and taught by the Holy
Spirit, but motionless and shrivelled, like a cell of the body

146 AGENTS IN PARTIBUS [1832-

that has worn itself out, if any man goes at the work
equipped solely with a grammar and a dictionary.

Even the mechanical work of printing Scriptures in a for
eign land rested as a responsibility upon the Board in New
York. Abroad there was then no such skill of printers that
general instructions could end anxiety about the result.
Carrying forward the work at home was like travelling on a
smooth, well built highway as compared with the obstacles
met in foreign lands while the missionary or Bible Agent
hews his path through the tangled underbrush at every
step.

A reason for the confidence of the Board was the thorough
organisation of the forces at home. The Auxiliary system
with its co-operative corps of travelling Agents, formed a
frame work, a skeleton, if you please, upon which the organs
of activity could find support and which insures some co
ordinate action. Through the Auxiliaries the spirit and
purpose of the national Society was known throughout the
land. The Auxiliaries served the Board of Managers as
eyes to report needs and dangers, and as hands to apply the
remedy instantly needed. The question now before the
Board was, How can the Society have eyes abroad, going
to and fro through all the different lands seeing needs, and
hands abroad to provide the service of fellowship with all
the different denominations, and to yield trusty reports of
things done and even of things vainly tried?

The answer to this question was that carefully chosen
agents sent to the different fields would serve the Board of
Managers as eyes and hands. The agent must be ever on
hand to follow into minutest details the execution of the
plans made in New York. He must be a lover of God and
of mankind; a man of penetration, of great prudence, of
experience in dealing with his fellowmen. With fine polish
of this sort an agent can effectively act for the Society. For
as Richter says, " Men, like bullets, go farthest when they
are smoothest."

The first agent sent out by the American Bible Society for
this direct oversight of the distribution of Scriptures was the
Rev. Isaac W. Wheelwright, appointed to the Pacific Coast
of South America. Mr. Wheelwright sailed from New

1841] MR. WHEELWRIGHT IN CHILE 147

York for Valparaiso, Chile, in November, 1833. His in
structions were to make a determined effort to put the
Spanish Scriptures into circulation in Chile and in fact in
all the coast regions as far north as the western slopes of
Mexico. In each place which he visited he was to sell as
many books as possible. Only after supplying those willing
to buy was he to give gratuitously to schools or to individ
uals.

Mr. Wheelwright was a man of thoughtful habit, judicious
in his choice of methods, simple and economical in his
tastes, and endowed with the virtue of perseverance. He
took with him two hundred Spanish Bibles, twelve hundred
New Testaments, besides five thousand copies of the Gospel
of St. Matthew that he might have something to give to
the children.

After the long and tedious voyage of three months around
Cape Horn, Mr. Wheelwright reached Valparaiso in March,
1834. He had good success in disposing of his Scriptures.
A good many of his books went into the schools. A learned
priest who was a member of the Senate took an interest in
his work and favoured the unrestricted circulation of the
Bible. But after he went northward to Coquimbo an in
fluential bishop opposed his work with might and main ;
and the Bible Society Agent was much chagrined to find
himself obliged to take away from a native bookstore two
boxes of Scriptures in order to save them from being burned
by order of the Bishop. Elsewhere people whose influence
might have hampered him were religiously indifferent ; and
a great many people refused to buy the Bible at any price.

After two years the Board put on record its faithful effort
to furnish the Bible to the disturbed countries of South
America, but noted that those countries offered little reason
for the continuance of the Agency. Nevertheless, the Board
decided to continue the experiment, probably because the
Agent, in spite of all obstacles, more than once wrote home
for further supplies of books. The agency came to an end,
however, in 1837 and \vas not renewed.

In its twentieth report the Board took up the agency
question as entirely new. " Hitherto," it announced, " ap
propriations for publishing foreign Scriptures have mostly

148 AGENTS IN PARTIBUS [1832-

been made through missionary bodies of different religious
denominations. Great good has in this way been effected,
and the same instrumentalities must be more or less resorted
to in the future. It appears to the Board, however, that they
should, as far as practicable, begin to establish agents of their
own in foreign countries ; men who shall co-operate with
missionaries in preparing and distributing the Scriptures, and
yet be responsible to this Board for their operations."

This decision of the Board was a natural step of progress
in efficiency. No longer would the Society seem to be a
mere money box upon which drafts could be made in sure
hope of acceptance. Far more than this the Society, here
after, would be in intimate co-operation with missionaries
everywhere. The needs of the missionaries would be its
needs. The joy of the missionaries in seeing the power
of the gospel of Jesus Christ would be its joy. As a mis
sionary Society the American Bible Society would now
enter the realms of paganism and Mohammedanism, one in
interest and aim with each of the denominations there labour
ing. It could do this feeling that the call had come from
the missions. Missionaries gladly served when they could
as distributors of the Bible, but to many of them keeping
account of books sent and of dues to men who distributed to
the people began to seem what serving tables seemed to the
Apostles in the early mission of the Church. The work of
preaching and teaching could not brook the distraction of
energy implied in carrying Bibles far afield to reach the
secluded, the isolated and the hungry. This pioneer work
distinctively belongs to the Bible Society.

A vastly more important agency than the travelling com
mission given Mr. Wheelwright was established in 1836 in
the fields of the American missionaries in the countries
bordering on the Eastern Mediterranean. The Rev. Simeon
H. Calhoun of Williams College was chosen to be the agent
and sailed for Smyrna in November, 1836. His voyage by
sailing vessel occupied forty-four days. Mr. Calhoun wrote
a cheery letter from Smyrna, Turkey, telling of his cordial
reception by the missionaries, the agent of the British and
Foreign Bible Society, and other friends. He went almost
immediately to Constantinople, the centre where American

1841] MR. CALHOUN IN TURKEY 149

missionaries were engaged in translation. Smyrna was the
location of the Mission Press. Printing material conld be
brought into the country more easily there, and more liberty
was enjoyed in Smyrna than immediately under the shadow
of the Sultan.

The Turkish Empire at that time extended from the
frontiers of Persia and the Caucasus Mountains westward
to the Adriatic Sea, and from the Persian Gulf and the val
ley of the Nile on the south to the borders of Hungary and
Transylvania on the north. Its territories included all the
lands which figure in Bible History, and its proud and self-
satisfied rulers were fully assured believers in the religion
of Mohammed. To Mohammedans in those early days in
sanity was the least opprobrious epithet with which they
could characterise the wisdom of Christianity. The ob
ject of American missions there was, of course, influence
upon Mohammedans ; but at first the missionaries sought to
arouse spiritual yearnings among the Greek and Armenian
Christians of the Empire, long cut off from fellowship with
the Christians of the \Yest.

Mr. Calhoun's first letters justified the decision of the
Board to send agents abroad. The American missionaries
at Constantinople were translating the Scriptures into Mod
ern Armenian, into Turkish as written with the Armenian
alphabet, and into the Spanish jargon written with Hebrew
letters used by the Jews of Turkey. In 1815 the Russian
Bible Society had published five thousand Ancient Armenian
Bibles and later two thousand Testaments in the same lan
guage. In 1822 with earnest solicitude to reach those who
could not understand their ancient writings, it had published
the New Testament in Armeno-Turkish.1 During almost
a score of years the British and Foreign Bible Society had
been securing the publication of Scriptures in Armenian as
well as in Greek. In 1819 Mr. Pinkerton while at Constan
tinople informed the British and Foreign Bible Society that
he had arranged for one thousand Modern Greek Testa
ments, five hundred Testaments in Ancient and Modern
Greek in parallel columns, and five hundred Arabic Testa-

1 Turkish written with Armenian letters.

150 AGENTS IN PARTIBUS [1832-

ments to be distributed among the pilgrims at Jerusalem with
out money and without price. The Board in New York
might be puzzled to know why, with such seed ready for
sowing, American missionaries urgently appealed for aid in
providing new seed for the sower. Mr. Calhoun quickly
learned that the existing versions had been generally in the
ancient form, while those issued in the modern dialect which
the people understood depended for accuracy upon the judg
ment of native translators, well-intentioned but little experi
enced in the use and interpretation of the Bible. Hence
those versions in the local languages could not be permanent.

By having an agent abroad who was a keen observer the
Board could see the actual needs and conditions of the fields
where they were asked to work. In the educational work of
the missions they quickly understood that the mission schools
and the Bible Society are rooted in the same soil and bear
the same kind of fruit. The mission schools make the Bible
an important part of the course. The board could under
stand the utter weakness of the oriental Christian churches.
The priests never preached. They were exactly like those
described by one of the old prophets as " dumb dogs that
cannot bark." They could not intelligently expound any
passage of Scripture. The people led by such priests cannot
understand why worship should demand thought. At one
place during morning prayers a house servant was moving
noisily about the room arranging the furniture. After
wards Mr. Calhoun rebuked him for disturbing the worship.
" Oh, what is the difference ! " he said. His idea of wor
ship was merely the making of the sign of the Cross, or the
counting of beads, and no noise disturbs that.

It was of the greatest importance to the Board to know
that the distribution of Scriptures at their expense was really
efficient. Mr. Calhoun was able to show that the tide of in
terest in the Bible had risen enough in those regions to float
the Bible Society ark over all obstructions and all shoals.
For instance, Armenians could use the Bible without fear
of penalty. Although the Greek patriarchs fiercely cursed
those who circulated and those who read the Modern Greek
Testament, large numbers of them were sold to the Greeks.
Mr. Calhoun writes in 1839 that about ten thousand New

1841] CONSTANTINOPLE MANY TONGUED 151

Testaments had been circulated in Greece through the
bounty of the Society. " Some of them," he says, " were
torn up and destroyed; but what of God's mercies are not
abused by men ? The most of them were kept and read by
the people." AYhen the Hebrew- Spanish version of Psalms
prepared by Dr. Schauffler and printed at the expense of the
Society was issued the Jewish Rabbis in Constantinople
anathematised the book and stopped its sale. But Mr. Cal-
houn sent his edition to Adrianople, Brousa, and other cities,
quickly selling a large number.

Had it not been for the Agent in the Mediterranean regions
the Board of Managers might not have heard of the variety
of demands for Scriptures encountered in Constantinople.
Thousands of people seemed to be waiting by the table to
pick up any crumbs which fell. It became necessary to get
German Bibles in quantities from New York to supply the
demand at Odessa. In Constantinople itself were English
and French and Germans who demanded Scriptures in their
own languages, and of course it would not do to say to such
that the Bible Agent came to Constantinople merely to sup
ply Armenians and Greeks. Mr. Calhonn received an appeal
from Rev. Justin Perkins, American missionary far away
in Persia. A Nestorian priest asked him for a Bible and
as a test the question was put to him : " In return what
will you pay for it?" The priest answered, "Silver and
gold have I none, but I will pray the Lord in return to give
you a portion in the Kingdom of Heaven." Mr. Perkins
wrote, " I suppose that your Society will have no objection
to receiving such currency as this."

It was also useful to the Board to understand the self-
denials and dangers which their agent encountered in do
ing his ordinary work. Because the plague was ravaging
Constantinople, when Mr. Calhoun went to Greece he was
imprisoned in quarantine for fifteen days, during which time
he was not allowed to see any friends excepting at a dis
tance, separated by a wide hall. In travelling in Syria in
1839 he was attacked by Bedouin Arabs but happily his
fleet mule out-distanced them. Various qualities of their
Agent revealed themselves through such experiences. In
Smyrna Mr. Calhoun took time to visit the hospitals and

152 AGENTS IN PARTIBUS [1832-

care for English sailors among the sick ; and coming oat of
the hospital he wrote at once to the far away office in New
York, " Send me two hundred English Bibles quickly ! "
When he was put in quarantine and cut off from his friends,
his Bible was his companion, lie received a new sense of
the fitness of this companion ; therefore he longed for greater
earnestness in distributing it among the people whose awful
fate for ages had been that the Bible was a sealed book to
them.

The object of the Bible Society is none other than to offer
slaves of evil the truth that sets men free. The fitness of
the Bible to satisfy men's need was the ultimate reason com
pelling the Society to choose Agents for its foreign fields.
Let the words of the Rev. John Breckenridge here express
the hope and the belief of the Society at this epoch : " Un
der the present title and organisation the benevolences of
the Society are absolutely unrestricted and universal. It
is American in the spirit of enlargement, not of restric
tion. It expresses our Nation's philanthropy. . . . The
history of the Bible is the history of liberty. The South
American states are not free because they have not the
Bible. Ireland is not free ; unhappy Poland is not free ;
Spain, Portugal — all oppressed nations are not free because
the people at large have not the Bible. Theirs is an erectness
of principle, a mental and moral independence proper to and
inseparable from the influence of the Bible. History has
wrung a reluctant tribute on this subject from Gibbon.
' Philadelphia alone,' he tells us, ' was saved by prophecy or
by courage. Her valiant citizens defended her religion and
her freedom above four score years, and at length capitulated
with the proudest of the Ottomans. Among the Greek col
onies and churches of Asia Minor Philadelphia is still erect,
a column in a scene of ruins.' Such a testimony needs no
comment." ^

1 Rev. Dr. Breckenridge at the Sixteenth Anniversary of the
American Bible Society. Monthly Extracts, No. 52.

CHAPTER XX

THE FINANCING OF THE BIBLE SOCIETY

ON hearing interesting information about any benevolent
enterprise some people regret a common practice which
mingles with the story, appeals for money. They do not
hesitate to communicate to others this regret. Efforts for
the good of mankind should not be debased by association
with money seems to be their thought.

But even Bibles cost. Sending them to the destitute im
plies expense. Even postage on the letters that convey news
of free grants of Scriptures in the course of each year costs
quite a little sum. So it comes about that obedience to the
command "' Go teach all nations," whether it takes the form
of a missionary or a Bible Society is as inseparable from the
problem of ways and means as is obedience to the law of love
in the home circle. Like every undertaking which is worth
while a Bible Society costs money in proportion to the
breadth and depth of its influence in the world. In 1817 the
work of the Bible Society was carried on at an expense of
about $19,500. In 1841 the cost shown by the Treasurer's
books was a little more than $i 18,000. There \vas nothing to
regret in placing this fact of necessary cost before those who
formed the Society for the benefit of the community and the
nation. Appeals for the support of the work naturally be
long with the narrative of its incidents.

Financing the Bible Society during its first twenty-five
years was (as it ever must be) a great problem which gen
erally absorbed the thought of the whole administration. So
many potential supporters of the Society seemed dormant as
to conscience ; so many people now knew not the founders of
the Society ; so gingerly must the approach to them be made ;
so hard was the choice of the opportune time for overtures ;
so often did impending disaster cloud hope ; that the effort

154 FINANCING THE SOCIETY [1832-

to give some stability to the income of the Society would
have been a mill-stone about the necks of men less able or
less godly than this group of managers and officers. Yet
on the whole this complicated and perplexing task in the
retrospect offers situations of intense interest.

The main reliance of the Society for financial strength,
as we have explained, was an enterprising and efficient
Auxiliary system. So long as they maintained the spirit
which animated them at the beginning, Auxiliaries would
retain efficiency. A chain of branches of a commercial
house succeeded upon this principle ; their usefulness often
depending upon spirited admonitions from the central office.

In 1841 there were nearly nine hundred Auxiliary Bible
Societies. Of these about one-half could be relied upon
for contributing to the general work so regularly that their
contributions could form a part of the financial plans of the
Society. One society in Western Massachusetts was in
clined to congratulate itself that its donations for the general
work of the American Bible Society during the whole twenty-
five years exceeded one thousand dollars a year. Where the
habit of giving is fixed, mere contact with regular givers
brings others into the same category. The Washington City
(District of Columbia), Bible Society was preparing a lib
eral donation for the American Bible Society, when one man
rose in the congregation and said that he would pledge two
hundred and fifty dollars a year for four years for this pur
pose. Instantly in another part of the house a second man
sprang to his feet and said, " I'll give a thousand dollars on
the same terms ! " This contagious interest made the dona
tion of the Washington City Bible Society more than twice
as much as its officers had thought of raising.

The Board urged Auxiliaries to remember the sacredness
of the effort in which they were engaged ; to hold meetings
at central points throughout their field that people might be
informed, and so to stir many hearts with desire to help. It
later appointed agents to travel among the Auxiliaries in
order to systematise both distribution of Scriptures and col
lection of money. After a time, the expense of maintaining
these agents was found to equal about twenty-five per cent,
of the money which they were able to raise for general work,

1841] FINANCIAL PROBLEMS 155

and the Board began to hesitate as to whether the good
work which they did in distributing Scriptures to the poor
was justified at such a cost in money. So in 1839 the Board
decided to diminish the number of these agents. Then
Auxiliaries which were not regularly visited by agents with
tidings of the great work began to lose energy ; the wheels of
their activity moved slower and slower, and finally stopped
like the wheels of a clock that has been forgotten. In 1840
as already noted, the Board appointed a Financial Secretary,
the Rev. E. S. Janes, D.D., to excite Auxiliaries and other
friends to larger contributions to the Bible Society. By his
efforts the Auxiliaries were to be encouraged and the finances
of the Society improved.

Grants to distant fields complicated the problem of financ
ing the Bible Society. Appeals as moving as the cry of a
child lost in the darkness of night came from Asia, Africa
and the islands of the Pacific. Of course the Managers in
making appropriations to help the missionaries carefully
examine the Society's average receipts of past years. This
is the basis of the limit within which all appropriations must
be brought. After it is fixed in deliberate council, the Board
has to proceed as if the money were in hand, although at the
beginning of every new year the Treasury be empty. Cau
tious business men who never relax their watch upon the
mouth of the money bag were led, however, to take risks by
appeals like the following copied from the records of 1838.
Air. Spaulding, Methodist Episcopal missionary in Brazil,
thus begged for Scriptures : " Suppose one in twenty would
receive the Bible, then two hundred and fifty thousand are
now wanted — or one in fifty, then one hundred thousand —
one in a hundred, then fifty thousand — or one in two hun
dred, then twenty-five thousand — or one in five hundred,
then ten thousand — or even one in a thousand, then five
thousand are now wanted. The country is open for their
reception. The door may soon be closed, forever. Can the
American Bible Society furnish us with what we want ? "
This appeal caused the Board at once (1839) to decide to
print the Scriptures of the Portuguese version in New York.

From Madras came word that the American Mission
Press had been enlarged, and to make its power felt by the

156 FINANCING THE SOCIETY [1832-

masses all was ready except the money. " My dear
Brother," wrote Mr. Sctidder, " we must go forward, and
you must in connection with the British Bible Society come
up to our help or our hands must hang down. Will you
come to our help? I, with such helpers as I need, will go
forth and distribute the books when prepared."

The agent in the Levant, Mr. Calhoun, wrote of demands
for Scriptures from American missionaries in Greece, Syria
and Persia. These he supplied by buying from the British
and Foreign Bible Society, whose agent, happily, did not re
fuse him as the virgins of the empty lamps in the parable
were refused. From Dr. Grant of the American Mission in
Persia came a moving appeal for aid to print the Bible in
Syriac. Syriac Scriptures were scarce at Julamerk. " Nes-
torian children," wrote Dr. Grant, " are taught to read with
the book bottom side up or turned on either side as well as
held in the perpendicular position so that five or six persons
may read from a single book around which they sit in a
circle." Such a picture of destitution coupled with youthful
eagerness to read remains on the tablet of the mind.

When the appropriation to aid work of any kind is once
made, it becomes an agreement which cannot be recalled
without notice. Men engaged for the work cannot be dis
missed at the close of a day, even though the Society's in
come dwindles. Hence applications for grants were received
at the point of the bayonet when people at home reduced
their donations to the Society.

In 1835 tne Board found that the census in the United
States showed more than five thousand blind. It promptly
decided that so soon as funds should be specially contributed
at least the entire New Testament must be printed in letters
which the blind can read. To Dr. Samuel G. Howe of Bos
ton, then engaged in experimenting to find a practical sys
tem of raised letters, was granted one thousand dollars and
later further sums toward the expense of printing the New
Testament in raised letters. The Massachusetts Bible So
ciety contributed for this work one thousand dollars, and
the New York Female Bible Society eight hundred dollars
more. " What," said a blind woman to Dr. Howe, " do you
think I can read the New Testament which you are printing?

1841] EMBARRASSMENTS IN A PANIC 157

Then I can die in peace ! " It was like a miracle of the Lord
Jesus. The Board could not fail to take part in so blessed
a work. And yet the agreement to begin this work was
equivalent to a promise to carry it on. And so, year after
year, many thousands of dollars have been expended by the
Society in printing books for the blind.

Almost unconsciously, about the same time, the Board
agreed to another permanent draft upon the Treasury. An
application came from the American Sunday School Union
for the terms on which it could be supplied with Scriptures,
since it wished to cease printing Bibles. The Managers
agreed cordially to put that Society on the same footing, as
to prices, with Auxiliary Bible Societies ; allowing it, more
over, six months credit. Later the Sunday School Union
desired Testaments which it could sell at ten cents. They
were furnished, although they cost the Society eleven and a
half cents a piece. The arrangement meant a steady burden
upon the finances of the Society, yet it was justified because
the Sunday School Union distributed the books widely over
the country.

The financing of the Society was complicated by the un
expected in 1836 and 1837. It then had to conduct work
under the stress of a terrible financial panic. In 1836 the
Board of Managers actually apologised to the public because
of a small balance in the Treasury at the end of the year.
It had promised to pay about forty thousand dollars to mis
sions abroad, and part of the money was left in hand to be
paid after correspondence. The change from fulness to
emptiness of the Treasury came with the appalling sudden
ness of a tropical storm. In that year naturally a slight
diminution of income was to be expected through the forma
tion of the American and Eoreign Bible Society. But be
sides this a crisis arose in commercial circles through the
tariff and the removal of United States funds from the
banks under President Jackson's financial policy. Strin
gency for money then began.

The year 1837 was an entire year of pecuniary embarrass
ment and suffering in every part of the country. Book sales
were about five thousand dollars below the average in each
of three next succeeding years. Collections of money for

158 FINANCING THE SOCIETY [1832-

the Bible Society were difficult and sometimes impossible.
Auxiliaries in many cases had to take payment in farm
produce for Scriptures or for annual subscriptions toward
the Bible Society work. Such contributions often spoiled
in store because there was no transportation to a market.
In the West when money was paid over, the treasurer of a
local Society could not remit it to New York without a very
heavy discount. Consequently money which ought to be in
New York remained in the treasuries of Auxiliary Socie
ties. Money that was sent sometimes lost its value on the
journey to New York. The Treasurer's report for 1839
showed a balance in hand of $1,452.43, and frankly specified
the elements of this balance to wit : Bills receivable not re
ceived, $562.43 ; broken bank and counterfeit notes, $142.50;
Texas money not current, $747.50; total, $1,452.43.

As the time dragged along the stock of books in the deposi
tory was lower than for several years, but more Scriptures
could not be printed because the receipts from sales had
fallen off. The Board did not feel justified in borrowing
money for printing, and was unwilling to plead importunately
for money because of the suffering that blighted the whole
nation. Like a noble ship driven by a hurricane, the Bible
Society was thrust by each voracious wave nearer to a rocky
coast. Money was not available to pay the appropriations
for American Missions abroad. The Society was in debt to
the mission in Ceylon, the missionaries having begun print
ing as soon as an appropriation was announced. In sheer
desperation the Board considered dismissing the printers and
binders in New York, and announcing to missionaries every
where that it was impossible to furnish the promised money.
Mr. Calhoun, foreseeing this, wrote from Turkey in 1838:
'' Your contributions have gladdened the hearts of the mis
sionaries ; will you now abandon them? If so my work will
be short." Mr. Goodell at Constantinople wrote : " We
cannot indulge for a moment the thought of the American
Bible Society giving up its work in the Mediterranean
regions. It would be unjust! The American Bible So
ciety has been doing a great and good work here. If it
holds on but three or four years longer it will complete the
great things which it has undertaken, and then can retire

1841] RELIEF EROM THE STRINGENCY 159

with honour and with the gratitude of half the world." The
Board of Managers when obliged to hear such reproach
ful pleading felt like a culprit before his righteous
judge.

Before the end of 1838, as if in answer to the prayers of
his distracted servants the Master had come to lead them
to their desired haven, there was a sudden calm. Dona
tions from Auxiliary Societies kept coming in until a total
of twenty-four thousand dollars was reached. Such a sum
had not before been paid in one year by Auxiliary Societies.
Mr. James Douglass of Cavors, Scotland, without solicitation
was suddenly moved to send a draft for one thousand pounds
sterling, as a donation to the Society. About the same time
some one bought a part of the land in Pennsylvania left to the
Society by Dr. Boudinot fifteen years before, and this unex
pectedly brought in two thousand dollars. Other legacies
paid in 1837 and 1838 brought eighteen thousand dollars
more into the Treasury. The lean years were ended ; the re
lief seemed to be due to a divine intervention ; the very print
ing presses hummed out psalms of thanksgiving. The mis
sionaries in Ceylon received their belated grant ; Scudder and
Winslow in India beamed with happiness on receiving five
thousand dollars at once to print books for the poor Tamil
villagers ; Agent Calhoun had solid comfort to spare for
Goodell and Schauffler, the translators ; and Siam, Africa and
the Sandwich Islands received their allotted portions with
joy. As for the men burdened with the problem of finding
the means for all these important labours, they thanked God
and went on with new courage.

It may be of interest to note, just here, the amount of re
ceipts of the Society during the first twenty-five years. The
aggregate of these receipts was $1,814,705. Almost half of
this amount came from sales of books, and went to re-stock
empty shelves. The donations of Auxiliary Societies during
the twenty-five years amounted to $469,284. Donations
from churches, societies, individuals, including Bible So
cieties not Auxiliary amounted to $391,475. Legacies re
ceived during the twenty-five years made a total of $103,410.
About $24,000 were received from other sources such as
rents, interest, etc. These totals made a very encouraging

160 FINANCING THE SOCIETY [1832-

showing, when we remember the two or three years of
financial panic and real poverty in almost all parts of the
country.

The problem of providing means for a work like that of
the Society was an inheritance from the fathers. The people
who called the Society into being had mostly passed away at
the end of a quarter of a century, and so to many the Bible
Society seemed a case of spontaneous generation for the
maintenance of which no one outside of its membership had
responsibility. Such careless aloofness was due to igno
rance and not to ill-will. Financing the Society required the
Board in the executive officers to keep close to the people so
as to remove ignorance, scatter information, and so to draw
the sons to feel toward the Society as their fathers did. The
Society was a living thing; therefore, it could not remain
limited to the measure of its first activities ; it grew, and
growth means larger supplies of the means of support. The
development of the object for which the Society was formed
was a sacred trust committed to the Society by the last gen
eration that the Board might hand it down to its successors.
The Bible Society, like a great fruit-bearing tree, needs not
only earth and sunlight and space to grow, but water and
suitable nourishment in order to rejoice the people with
abundant fruit. To provide these is a duty that falls upon
the shoulders of each successive generation of our people,
and to them, if they but appreciate it, such a duty will prove
a veritable mantle of Elijah.

At the end of the first twenty-five years of its existence
the Bible Society represented the definite purpose of a solid
and influential part of the American people. It had a right
to assume that all the people can be interested in learning its
work, and can learn that it properly depends upon the people
all over the land for the support of enterprises placed in its
hands by the providence of God. When there is questioning,
then, why the American Bible Society should stand at the
door pleading for money, the answer is that the Board and
its officers are bound to make these requests. This is not
like some visionary scheme for drawing light and heat with
out labour or expense from coal as it lies in the mine. It

1841] A. CHURCH ENTERPRISE 161

is a skilfully directed missionary enterprise, which, in the
providence of God, like all sane enterprises of His church,
had direct and active relation to the whole progress of the
race.

CHAPTER XXI

THE GAINS OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS

ON the I3th day of May, 1841, the American Bible Society
met at the Society's house in New York at nine o'clock A. MV
and after the routine business was transacted, at half past
nine a procession was formed, consisting of officers, man
agers, guests, members, delegates, clergymen and others,
which moved to the Tabernacle on Broadway. At ten
o'clock the chair was taken by the President supported by six
Yice-Presidents, and the meeting was opened by Rev. Dr.
Milnor reading part of the iiQth Psalm.

President John Cotton Smith delivered an address, empha
sising the promise for the future found in the experiences of
the past. Secretary Brigham then read a report of the oper
ations of the twenty-fifth year. The issues were 150,202
volumes, making the aggregate issues of the Society in
twenty-five years 2,795,698 volumes. The receipts from all
sources amounted to $118,860.41 ; the aggregate receipts for
twenty-five years being $947,384.06. The Scriptures had
been circulated in about fifty languages and especially among
the poor who would not otherwise have received the gospel.

The report of this meeting adds, " As usual the audience
was immense and attentive, evincing unabated attachment to
the circulation of the Bible." A part of this interest came
from a dramatic incident. The Rev. Hiram Bingham, mis
sionary of the American Board in the Sandwich Islands,
and translator of the Bible, was called upon for an address.
He brought forward and formally presented to the Society a
copy of the Bible in Hawaiian, the result of fifteen years'
labour which he said had been made available to the people
by financial aid from the American Bible Society. A thrill
ran through the audience like that which moved the multi-

162

1832-1841] A TELLING APPEAL 163

tude when Jesus Christ gave hearing and speech to the dumb.
People looked their satisfaction into each other's eyes.

Air. Bingham made a telling point in his address when he
said that he had just learned that the Society had appro
priated fifty thousand dollars to be given for Bible work
among heathen abroad during the current year. " I cannot
conceal my grief," he said. " If I were to express my feel
ing and that of my associates I would say to the Board of
Managers, 4 Take thy bill quickly and write five hundred
thousand/ Would not this enlightened and Christian as
sembly approve the amendment ? Just think of it ; fifty thou
sand dollars for the whole pagan world ! " The passionate
entreaty was not lost upon the audience, although no action
upon it could be hastily taken. During years they had given
and had prayed that their gifts might advance the kingdom.
The gifts and the prayers had been accepted and used by
God as they desired! In Hawaii a newly Christianised na
tion was the result ! Such an appeal emphasised as nothing
else could the increased opportunity for service which
marked these twenty-five years. Men went from that meet
ing convinced of the great possibilities which God has placed
before the Society, and in it before all Christians.

One point of difference in the position of the Society i»a
1841 compared with its uncertain beginnings in 1816 is shown
in its stable administration. The outstanding feature of its
administration was its dependence upon the Auxiliary Bible
Societies. Many of them represented mere good intentions
without strength to execute ; and the list of Auxiliary Socie
ties had been in great measure cleared of the weaklings.
Many dormant Auxiliaries had been revived, sometimes
with a more simple organisation. All of the Auxiliaries
were knit more firmly together through their union with the
American Bible Society, and all knew that the plan of this
combined action was a plan that would work. Aspirations
like that for the General Supply or for work in foreign
fields would have vanished like air-castles of other types
had these Societies not been bound together by means of a
national Society.

Another salient point of difference between the Society in
1841 and the Society in 1816 was its comprehension of its

164 GAINS OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS [1832-

home field. The fact that distribution at home was a vital
necessity, had become elucidated and fully understood. In
1816 the great work before the Society was to print Bibles.
It is a great thing to print many Bibles, but in 1841 it had
become a commonplace axiom that though the number
printed be enough to bury the Bible Flouse, the books would
do no good unless carried forth to the needy. The Society
had learned in some degree that people may eat at the same
table, find shelter under the same roof, and yet be miles apart
in their spiritual sympathies. It now included in its fields
points in Europe, Asia, and Africa, but it appreciated the
wrong which would be involved in thinking the needs of
Turkey more urgent than those of Tennessee.

Its field at home had many pressing problems, the most
grave of which was that after all the lavish supply there
were still in these United States people handicapped by igno
rance of the Bible. How could any one live without the
Bible for one year? Members of the Board would almost as
soon give up life as give up the Bible. The golden rule of a
Bible Society is to do to others, even at home, as it would be
done by. Some paragraphs in the report of May, 1841,
showed both the need and the helpless desires of destitute
people to find the Bible. One agent in the mountains of
Kentucky said that hundreds and thousands of women in
that state are anxious to get the Bible, praying God to let
them have one, who never had and never would have so
much as fifty cents of their own. One of these women said
she loved the Bible ; she had seen but one in five years, and
that belonged to a friend living seven miles away. She
would buy a Bible but she had no money. The agent gave
her one. Tears came to her eyes as she said, " It is the
most precious present I have ever received. Now instead
of visiting on Sunday I can stay with my Bible and be
happy." Another agent in southeastern Georgia told of a
house which he reached by a log path ; that is, a line of trees
so felled that one touches the other, bridging a great swamp.
In three families which the agent visited at the other end
of this primitive path, but one person could read ; but when
that one person was given a Bible, the three families estab
lished the custom of meeting together every night and the

1841] MARK HOPKINS ON THE BIBLE 165

one read aloud to them, stooping over the fire of pine knots
which gave them light. The Society had a right to insist
that " demand for the Bible among the destitute proves that
God both prepares their hearts to receive it, and calls upon
us to circulate it more extensively."

In the early years of the Society some warm-hearted
Christians feared the effect of - giving to ignorant people
Bibles without notes. This fear was of the same quality as
that of a grandmother \vho protests on seeing a grandchild
fed meat for the first time. But the dread of Bibles without
notes slowly passed away. As President Mark Hopkins
strongly said in an address at the Anniversary in 1840
(which we cannot give in full), none should say there is
harm in giving ignorant people the Bible without notes.
The sun requires no artifical medium by which to transmit its
light. The free air of heaven needs no addendum of human
perfumes to make it healthful. No one hesitates to let his
child see the works of God in the sky or in the rocks fear
ing lest the child's simple mind be disturbed by the contro
versies of geologists and astronomers. The child's emotions
of beauty and sublimity are called forth by seeing the
grandeurs of nature. So with the Bible.

The Biblical scientist may dig down through the strata of
truth and adopt what pleases him ; " but let the child and
the unlettered feel the beauty and sublimity and moral
power of the precepts and facts of revelation which God has
made to stand out as great rocky mountains. Love of truth
helps one to comprehend truth." And so it is lawful to place
the light of truth in the benighted cottage ; to give durable
riches to the poor; to give the oil of joy to widow and
orphan ; to give the soldier, the sailor, and the immigrant
an invaluable directory. The Society had freely added all
these to the privileges of its home field in twenty-five years
of experience.

The Society's serious work in the foreign field was en
tirely the development of a decade, and that field in 1841
was no longer a vague expanse of unknown and unclassified
paganism. The American foreign missionary societies since
the organisation of the Bible Society had sent men to spread
the gospel in many foreign lands. As soon as these mission-

1 66 GAINS OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS [1832-

aries realised the need of Bibles they cried aloud to the
American Bible Society for help, so that by the end of the
twenty-fifth year the work of the Society was linked to
that of missions in Asia, Africa, and Oceania besides those
in America and in Europe. Hiram Bingham said truly, in
speaking of the Bible Society at the anniversary, that 4' the
Bible cause every year assumes new importance from the
indispensable aid which it furnishes the advancing cause of
Christian missions." It seemed almost as if the whole ques
tion of a speedy evangelisation of the world might depend
upon the will of contributors to Bible Societies.

Another point of gain in the equipment of the Society in
twenty-five years was its increased command of languages.
In 1817 the Board had already arranged to purchase French
and German Scriptures, and expressed the hope that some
time to these it might add Scriptures in Spanish and Portu
guese. By the end of 1841 the Society had printed or aided
in printing Bibles, Testaments or portions in five languages
of the American Indians, seven European languages, five
languages of Asiatic Turkey, seven languages of India, be
sides Hawaiian, Chinese, and the Grebo language of West
Africa. Moreover, in carrying on its work, it had found
it necessary to purchase Scriptures in twenty other lan
guages.

This rapid gain sprang from the entreaty of missionaries
for aid not only in printing but also in translating the
Scriptures. The American Board in those days was the
largest of the foreign missionary societies, and consequently
the larger part of these requests came from its missions.
Under its charter that Society was obliged to print Bibles
for its different fields when necessary. In its first twenty
years it had printed the Scriptures in various alien lan
guages. In September, 1839, however, Rev. Dr. Ander
son, Secretary of the A. B. C. F. M., wrote Secretary Brig-
ham that appropriations had been made to its missionary
stations absorbing all its probable income ; but that it had
not appropriated one dollar for printing Scriptures, leaving
this entirely to the American Bible Society.

The printing of Bibles for missions brought the Society
an important advantage in close personal relations with the

1841] SOME VETERAN TRANSLATORS 167

missionaries who knew their fields most thoroughly. They
must have been men of strong initiative and endurance who
in those days could venture to translate the Bible. Some
of the names of the early missionaries of the American
Board have been treasured in Bible Society records as well
as in those of the missionary Society. We have room only
to mention a few who were busy with Bible translation at
that time : J. B. Adger, William Goodell, W. G. Schauffler,
H. G. O. Dwight, and Elias Riggs, in Turkey ; Hiram Bing-
ham in the Sandwich Islands, and E. C. Bridgman in China ;
and among missionaries working in the United States, S.
Riggs, Williamson, besides Dencke, whose was the version
in the Delaware language first undertaken by the Society.
These men put into the hands of the Bible Society a God-
given power, for it takes several years to fit out one mission
ary in a single language, but in one year a Bible Society
can make thousands of Bibles in many languages which
when ready can be set in places reached by no living mission
ary.

A curious illustration of the importance of this power
was seen in Bombay, India, when as a by-product of the So
ciety's edition of the Scriptures in Marathi, Israel was en
lightened. Numbers of Jews living in Bombay had for
gotten Hebrew and had almost lost the principles of their
religion. But they eagerly took up the study of the Old
Testament in Marathi which was a revelation to them, and
led to important reforms. So in this blessed work the very
languages come bowing the neck to receive the yoke of the
Son of God, lending themselves to the sower of the Word.

From all this it becomes clear that the Society had now
reached maturity. Its bones were hardened, its muscles
toughened, and its eyes trained accurately to observe.
Much preparation is required to turn the recruit into a sol
dier ; seasoned, cool and unflinching. The Society had
found that a means used of God for securing his servants
from unfruitful effort is often a plain blocking of the way.
As Burke says, " Our antagonist is our helper." The fact
is that men pray for quiet success too much. They would
not seek the quiet that belongs to stagnation. Any life, to
be tolerable, must have aspirations which spring from dis-

1 68 GAINS OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS [1832-

content with current conditions ; leading perhaps to strife,
but certainly to struggle. The Board of Managers probably
much desired a plain and easy path, but looking back upon
its course during these years, it saw that the progress gained
could not have been gained by any who sit at ease in Zion.

The death list in the records of the Bible Society during
twenty-five years includes three Presidents, twenty-three
vice-Presidents, and seventeen members of the Board of
Managers. As President John Cotton Smith said : " The
virtues of the men who founded the American Bible Society
are to be revered and emulated, but the places once occupied
by those deceased associates in active duty have been suc
cessively filled by men capable and qualified for these onerous
and responsible offices." The men now in charge of the af
fairs of the Society found themselves trusted by the people
not alone because of the great men who had gone but be
cause of their own good service, just as the soldier is re
warded on the battle-field ; not for the rank which he holds
but for what he has done.

A precious gain of the Society in its first quarter century
was a larger appreciation of the power of the Bible to
change men. We may not understand this power, but we
can feel it and see it, just as we can live and grow without
understanding how food is changed into blood, muscle and
bone. Where the Bible is not read corrupt forms of re
ligion prevail. It was the privilege of the Society in these
years to see nations definitely influenced by the Bible in
South America, in Turkey, and in the Sandwich Islands,
besides noting its influence in different parts of the United
States. In Latin America, whether in Mexico, West Indies
or the different countries of South America, cases were re
peatedly observed where the lives of men were lifted to a
high plane through Bible study ; and many were prepared for
receiving instructions of the missionaries soon to establish
themselves in those regions. In Greece twenty thousand
copies of the New Testament had been scattered among the
schools and the homes of the common people. This sowing
was somewhat like that of the parable; much of the seed
seemed wasted, and yet, there too, the seed which fell on
good ground repaid all the expense and all the labour.

1841] HOW THE BIBLE GLORIFIES GOD 169

The Bible points out germicides which arrest moral and
spiritual decay. No medical man or professor of bacteri
ology is as positively sure as this book in the indication of
antiseptics that prevent blood-poisoning.

In Turkey before 1841 twenty-five American mission
aries with their wives had established themselves in ten
widely separated stations in different parts of the empire.
Each one of these stations was a distributing centre for
Scriptures furnished by the Bible Society. The stations
nearest the coast were built upon foundations laid by Mr.
Benjamin Barker, Agent of the British and Foreign Bible
Society; but after 1836 they were supplied by the American
Bible Society, some with books printed in Turkey on the
mission press at its expense, some with Scriptures bought
from the Agent of the British Society. By the close link
ing of the Society with the missions these Scriptures were
distributed with a discretion and thoroughness which no
single agent of any Bible Society could exercise; and the
result, precious fruit of larger grants of the American Bible
Society, was a general clearing of the religious ideas of Ar
menians and Greeks. Unsound thoughts leave the mind in
the presence of the word of God as silt leaves the turbid
stream, sinking to the bottom where it belongs, when ex
posed to the light and air of heaven.

A lesson of these experiences is that the Bible glorifies
God. The Book was planted as an essential in the first
American colonies ; it moved men to make so rare a treasure
known to the destitute ; it thus assured in the midst of the
nation a will to serve the purposes of God, and became
fundamental in both Bible Society and missionary Society.
Thoughtful men regarding the story of the first quarter of
a century of the Bible Society were startled by evidence,
withal, that God's hand directed its course. This guidance
was seen in the time at which the organisation took place,
just as immigration commenced to assume importance and
as the vast territories of "Louisiana" received from Na
poleon had begun to attract settlers. It was seen in the re
sponsibility brought upon the Society for providing French,
Spanish and German Scriptures to be used in the United
States ; it was seen again in the attention to needs in South

1 70 GAINS OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS [1832-

America forced by a logic like that of Joseph Hughes : if
we can give Bibles to the aliens in the United States, why
not to those using the same languages elsewhere? It was
seen in the simultaneous invention by several Auxiliary
Bible Societies of the plan of systematic supply of all desti
tute families in their local fields within two years' time,
which plan men dared apply to the whole United States ;
and it was seen again in the echo from American missions
abroad of the reports of this General Supply at home, that
led to the momentous decision to supply all American
foreign missionaries, so making the American Society a
world Bible Society.

Thus the Board of Managers had seen a vision of God's
hand beckoning and had heard His voice calling to the
action for which He Himself had raised it up. Nothing
had remained for them to do but to throw energy and per
sistence into their work, with thanksgiving for the privi
lege of a share in the divine purpose to establish His king
dom ; and with every servant through whom from the begin
ning the kingdom has been in any way advanced, each mem
ber of the Board and every Secretary was moved to the ut
terance of the old song: 'The Lord has triumphed glori
ously, praise ye the Lord ! "

FOURTH PERIOD 1841-1861
CHAPTER XXII

AMONG DESTITUTE AMERICANS

A MOST commonplace axiom declares acts to be perma
nent in their results. On the other hand any great enter
prise in these days has some date which men call its begin
ning, although the true beginning is not commonly sought.
The American Bible Society came into existence in 1816;
before that, however, the idea from which it sprang was
rooted in many lands. Europe, with its turmoil of clash
ing religious and political systems; the Roman Empire, with
its iron rigidity of organisation ; the Jewish Commonwealth,
with its glory and its shame, all nourished some roots of this
great idea. The idea which took form in America in 1816
did not then have its beginning. Paul has planted, Apollos
has watered, and the increase has followed in time from
principles of uplift long unnoted.

Small events described in the first twenty-five years cov
ered by this story have somehow become knit together in a
complicated pattern. Since the story hereafter deals more
clearly with results than with mere hopes and plans, mys
tery gives place to certainty that a Society " whose beginnings
are eternal " does not end when men connected with it end
their active life. An empire built upon force of arms be
gins with a man skilled in arms and bold in self-assertion,
and it ends when his successors let it fall. The enterprise
of the Bible Society abides because it plants in the minds
of sincere Bible lovers, God's truth. Some of these will
hand the Word down to children's children, and some will
pass it on to neighbours who bequeath it to their children's
children. The result is an ever widening circle whose
centre is the truth which makes men free. An end to this
extension cannot be imagined, any more than one can
imagine the end of rare and beautiful flowers seen in Japan

171

172 AMONG DESTITUTE AMERICANS [1841-

or China or South America, and brought to our gardens.
No one discusses whether seed or flower came first, and no
one dreams of an end to the species, once established in the
soil.

The permanence of the plant once established was not
necessarily prominent in the minds of the Board as it faced
the question, How can the work of the Society advance in
this country with the growth of population? The first step
to finding the destitute Americans in the home field was ap
preciation, at last, of its immensity. The strongest Auxil
iary Bible Societies were all within three hundred miles of
New York City; but by painful experience the Board had
learned in 1841 that its greatest problems lay beyond a circle
three hundred miles from New York. Sitting in New York
the Board heard appeals from the people and from its
Agents ; some were five hundred miles away, some eight
hundred, some twelve hundred, and some almost three
thousand miles away, yet within the limits of the United
States. The efficiency of plans to increase the circulation
of the Bible at such distances rested upon the hearts of
members of the Board as constantly as the need to make
money hangs about the neck of one who has planned to ac
quire quickly a million dollars. And the urgency of these
appeals pressed upon the Managers of the Bible Society be
cause without the Bible men, women and children of the
frontier districts would become hardened through follow
ing their own hot desires as the earth is hardened by the sun
in a weary land where no water is.

In this desperate condition were the people among whom
Agent Simpson of Kentucky worked in the late forties and
of whom he wrote. " They are often as careless and in
different about spiritual things as the wild beasts in their
own mountains. No minister has ever had access to them,
and around them no moral restraints are ever thrown." Yet
these were full-blooded descendants of the early colonists.
The greatness of its task was forced upon the attention of
the Board by such reports as that one-fourth of the families
of Kentucky had no Bible; in several election districts of
Maryland the same ratio of destitution was found ; in Potter
County, Pennsylvania, which had been supplied five years be-

1861] LIFE DIRECTORS AND MEMBERS 173

fore, fully one-fourth of the families in the increased popu
lation were destitute. The need to save our own people
from dry rot, and the sense that it was for their sake, per
haps, that the Bible Society had " come to the kingdom,"
pressed ceaselessly upon conscience. The members of the
Board, the Secretaries, the Agents, the Auxiliaries, the ex
plorers whom the Auxiliaries employed, their officers, and
the many branch Societies might have been found, there
fore, in the twenty years before the Civil War breathlessly
working together for the one object of the Bible Society -
an instrument of uplift divinely supplied with pervasive
power.

By this time the American Bible Society had some thou
sands of Life Members and a very considerable number of
Life Directors. To these friends the Board looked for aid.
Life Members and Life Directors scattered over the whole
breadth of the country might distribute many Bibles. The
Board, therefore, decided in 1841 to let every Life Member
participate in Bible distribution by receiving without charge
one dollar's worth of Bibles or Testaments in each year.
The same cheap books to a larger value would be given, on
request, to each of the Life Directors. In the first year
after this decision about eleven hundred dollars' worth of
Bibles and Testaments were distributed among the poor by
Life Members and Life Directors. Later it became neces
sary once or twice for the Board to call attention to the pur
pose of enabling Life Members and Life Directors to be
agents of Bible distribution, for which this annuity of books
was allowed; but the purpose has been, to a large degree,
carried out, many and many worthy poor having received,
through Life Directors and Life Members, Scriptures which
they otherwise could not have obtained. The system was
as simple as the distribution of water from an irrigating
canal over a wide expanse of country by means of little
channels opened when needed by individual farmers.

Another method of widely distributing Scriptures which
suggested itself to the Board of Managers was enlistment of
the good offices of pastors. It seemed reasonable that the
destitute should be supplied with Scriptures by their nearest
neighbours, and the Board sent out circulars urging pastors

174 AMONG DESTITUTE AMERICANS [1841-

of churches to help the local Auxiliary Societies to reach
needs in their own fields. No agency could equal churches
interested in the work and co-operating with the Society.
The pastor is one individual in a church, but by his leader
ship the people are impelled to win others. It was this great
influence which the Board sought to gain and did gain in the
sparsely settled districts. As the churches became larger
and the cares of the clergy more complicated, it came to pass
in many instances, however, that pastors replied, when asked
to act as distributors and collectors for the Bible Society,
that with the duties of their charges and the supervision of
the many charities of the day they were taxed to the full ex
tent of their physical powers. When asked, at least to in
duce members of their churches to lend a hand in Bible dis
tribution, many replied that laymen are so pressed with the
legitimate engagements of business as to have little time to
make personal distribution of Scriptures. The country was
growing up ; its people were fully occupied. The Board
was forced to rely chiefly upon Auxiliary Societies for ex
ploring the needy fastnesses of the West.

The Board at its station in New York regarded Auxiliary
Bible Societies five hundred, a thousand, or fifteen hundred
miles away as the natural outlet for the stream of Bibles
and Testaments continually issuing from the Bible House.
Many days' journey from that Managers' Room, where
reigned supreme the one desire to build up character in the
nation, somebody must seek out those careless about char
acter. Auxiliary Societies on the ground could most wisely
choose and direct explorers and Bible distributors. So it
came about that the Board urged the six hundred or more
Auxiliary Societies beyond the Alleghanies to strengthen
their organisations, securing the co-operation of every church
and every individual.

The Auxiliaries of the Eastern States were caring for
their own fields. The New York Bible Society was supply
ing the destitute in New York City and the immigrants as
they landed after the tedious passage across the ocean.
Through work among the merchant ships in the harbour,
the New York Society and also the Philadelphia Society
found means of getting Bibles into Spain. This in the

1861] STRONG AND ACTIVE AUXILIARIES 175

fifties was an impossible feat if directly attempted. Spanish
sailors in New York harbour, however, supplied with the
Book which to them was a curiosity were careful enough to
see that no custom house or police devices in their own land
touched their own private property. The Massachusetts
Bible Society, the New Hampshire Bible Society, the Ver
mont Bible Society, comparatively near at hand, were all
busy with the distribution in their own states. The Penn
sylvania Bible Society in the three years, 1841 to 1844, dis
tributed one hundred and fifty-three thousand volumes in its
own field. It built a commodious Bible House in Philadel
phia but even this expense did not lead it to diminish the
donation of some five thousand dollars which each year it
attempted to place at the disposal of the national Society.
The Virginia Bible Society, fully awake to the ignorance
which was threatening the mountain regions of that state,
effectively worked for Bible distribution, placing two or
three thousand volumes each year in the most needy dis
tricts. But it was beyond the five hundred mile limit that
the Board of Managers most felt its dependence upon
Auxiliaries as channels of distribution.

Types of the distant but active societies linking remote
populations with the warm sympathy centred in New York
are worthy of notice. One was the Nashville Bible So
ciety, of which General Andrew Jackson had been the first
vice-President. This Society was the source of supply of
all destitute families in Middle Tennessee in 1829, and
twenty-five years later was busily distributing Scriptures not
only in its own, but in many neighbouring counties. An
other efficient Society was the Charleston Auxiliary in South
Carolina which paid a part of the salary of the Agent sent by
the Board to supervise Bible distribution in that state, and
which showed marked activity until the Civil War cut off,
for a time, communication between the New York Bible
House and the Southern States. One of the last acts of the
Charleston Auxiliary before the outbreak of the Civil War
was in 1860 to send a donation of one thousand dollars to
the American Bible Society while at the same time dis
tributing 800 volumes of Scripture among the troops who
were shortly to begin the attack upon Fort Sumter. An-

176 AMONG DESTITUTE AMERICANS [1841-

other of these more distant Bible Societies was the Ala
bama Bible Society which in 1852 built a serviceable Bible
House stocked with Scriptures for the surrounding ten or
fifteen counties. A thousand miles or so from New York
was the New Orleans Bible Society. Here the American
Bible Society kept a stock of about $5,000 worth of Scrip
tures in various languages for distribution among interior
towns, and, during the Mexican War, in Texas and in
Mexico. After the Mexican War the New Orleans Bible
Society bought the whole stock of books belonging to the
American Bible Society in that city and shortly took part
in the organisation of the Southwestern Bible Society at
New Orleans in which it was merged and which built a Bible
House in New Orleans from which Bible workers through
out the Southwest could obtain supplies.

In 1857 the Southwestern Bible Society reported that dur
ing the six years since its organisation it had sent 42,000 vol
umes of Scripture into Louisiana and Southern Mississippi,
and had explored territories which up to this moment had
never been systematically examined. Equally important,
but not quite so far away, was the St. Louis Bible Society
whose efficiency was shown in the year of financial panic,
1847, by its visitation of ten thousand families in Missouri,
of whom only three hundred destitute of the Bible refused
to be supplied. Still within a circle of one thousand miles
from New York, the officers of the Auxiliaries in Illinois
took up enthusiastically the plan of establishing branch So
cieties in every township. In 1855 there were in that state
six hundred and twenty-five Auxiliary Bible Societies and
branches. In 1857 there were a thousand so well organised
that there were fully one thousand local depositories in the
state. At the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, Illinois
had one thousand two hundred and twenty-five Bible So
cieties which had issued fifty-five thousand volumes during
the year; fifteen hundred ministers co-operating heartily in
the distribution and forming a part of an effective army of
ten thousand unpaid volunteers engaged in Bible distribu
tion in the state.

Separated from New York by the whole breadth of the
Continent, in 1850 an Auxiliary Bible Society was organised

i86i] BIBLE WORK IN CALIFORNIA 177

in San Francisco by the Rev. F. Buel, whom the Board had
sent in August in 1849, by way of the Panama railroad,
post haste to furnish Bibles for that wonderful region of
gold which passed through no territorial childhood, but al
most as soon as Commodore Sloat and Colonel Fremont had
taken possession sprang into notice a full grown and amply
populated country demanding admission as a state. Al
most with its first introduction to the people of the Eastern
States, Christian workers hurried to this wonderful new
country. Churches were built and to the infinite satisfac
tion of the Board of Managers of the Bible Society, in settle
ments where no preacher had yet appeared, Bible deposi
tories had been opened, stocked with Scriptures in almost all
the languages of Babel. Two thousand miles west of New
York was another distributing centre among the Mormons
in Utah. At first Bible distribution was approved and the
Mormons themselves organised little local Bible Societies ;
but in 1858 there is a record of the unhappy ending of the
work so pleasantly commenced. In that year the Mormons
expelled from Utah territory the Bible Society Agents.

Of course there were some idle and inefficient Societies
which could not be moved by any high tension motors in
New York, but in general the zeal and the efficiency of these
distant Auxiliary Societies counted for much in solving the
problems of the Board.

The various methods devised by the Board for the supply
of the United States form a complicated whole sometimes
described summarily as " machinery." But in Bible dis
tribution on such a scale no system of mere machinery can
achieve results. In this case action must be thoughtful and
sympathetic or the object will not be attained for which the
great Master of all work thrusts forth His labourers. As
already mentioned, the Board employed superintending and
advisory agents, especially in fields where the duty of seek
ing and supplying the destitute was neglected or imper
fectly performed. Each Agent had under his supervision
from forty to fifty counties, in each of which, theoretically,
an Auxiliary Bible Society was constantly in action. In
the districts of the West and Southwest, far from New
York, it was found that Auxiliaries could do little unless

178 AMONG DESTITUTE AMERICANS [1841-

occasionally visited by an Agent to advise and to strengthen
their purpose of looking up and supplying the destitute. An
illustration of the influence of the Agents marks a stage of
progress in New Jersey. In 1848 there were in that state
forty-one Auxiliary Bible Societies. Twenty-three of these
were absolutely torpid. An Agent was appointed by the
Board to re-animate these local Bible Societies. After five
years, returns from New Jersey showed that there was
hardly a single inactive Society in the state. But the reports
of the national Society do not show the whole result of
such agencies, for a number of strong state Societies ap
pointed and supported Agents of their own to advise and en
courage the county Auxiliaries.

In 1842 the number of Agents employed by the Ameri
can Bible Society was fifteen. The number was gradually
increased until after four or five years, between thirty and
forty Agents were in the service all the time. These Agents
were carefully selected for the work, since, like St. Paul,
they must count physical obstacles as naught. In a newly
settled region the Bible Agent's condition resembles that of
the settlers whose log huts he visits. His work is of the
same type as that of men newly occupying wild land. It
is the work of taking out the tangled undergrowth, felling
trees, dragging together logs, chopping up branches, and
finally ploughing and harrowing the soil that it may be seeded
down. Of a typical Agent it is recorded that " he sought
to organise a Bible Society Auxiliary in every congrega
tion." This was the Rev. Thomas String-field, of Tennessee
and Alabama, who afterwards became editor, the first editor
in fact of the Southwestern Christian Advocate, now the
Christian Advocate published at Nashville, Tennessee,
being the organ of the Methodist Episcopal Church South.
Our space will not allow us to characterise in details the
members of this noble body of Christian workers.

Nothing was ever achieved without enthusiasm, and there
fore Agents must feel that they are called to the work, and
are doing that for which God has sent them. They were
chosen for spiritual qualities as well as for those more ob
viously needed which imply strength of body and of mind ;
and it has been the experience of the Society from the be-

1861] THE LIFE OF A BIBLE AGENT 179

ginning that to be personally engaged in taking the Bible to
those who do not know or do not want it is a means of
spiritual growth which is not to be surpassed.

Sometimes the work of taking Bibles into the wilderness
was costly on account of the sparseness of the population.
Rev. J. A. Baughman, Agent in Michigan, some ten years
after the territory had become a state, reported that the dis
tance he travelled during the year was 2,723 miles, but the
number of books which he put into circulation was only three
thousand five hundred volumes. An Agent in one of the
Southern States gives in his report a glimpse of other cares
in this kind of life : " I have been separated from my
family in special cases eight or ten weeks at a time, suf
fering many inconveniences, several times being upset in
stages, more than once barely escaping drowning on the
coast, preaching usually three times on Sunday besides ad
dressing Conventions and Auxiliary Societies almost every
day during the week. All these things combine to make
the year one of toil and sacrifice ; but I do not regret it."
Rev. J. J. Simpson, an Agent partly supported by the Lex
ington and Vicinity, Kentucky, Bible Society had for the
goal of his efforts a visit to every family in his district that
could be reached on horseback or on foot. One adventure
in seeking out the houses of settlers hidden away in the
woods, included missing the road in the dark and finding
himself in a ravine from which there was no visible exit.
Providentially, at this crisis, out of the darkness, two rough
looking but kind-hearted farmers came to his relief. The
records of this class of labour also include tragedies. The
Rev. H. J. Durbin, one of these Agents, while riding through
a forest in a storm was killed by a heavy branch torn from a
tree by the gale. Rev. Richard Bond, an experienced and
efficient Agent in Missouri, was killed by the accidental dis
charge of a carbine brought home as a trophy from Mexico
by one of the volunteers. In Indiana, Agent Mayhew was
drowned in fording a river. While Agent Hatcher of
Tennessee was absent from home on a Bible tour in 1850,
his house, library and papers were burned. The shock of
the home-coming can be imagined !

The expense of maintaining agents among the Auxiliary

i8o AMONG DESTITUTE AMERICANS [1841-

Societies was a subject of constant anxiety to the Board.
The average annual cost to the Society of an Agent was
something like one thousand dollars ; but no new discussion
of the question disclosed means of avoiding the expense. It
could not be a wise economy to save the cost of Agents and
let Auxiliary Societies give up the struggle and die. The
newly settled regions in the West must be supplied at all
costs ; and after the year 1848 the Board deliberately decided
to treat distant western territories as the British and For
eign Bible Society treated countries in Europe and Asia
where Scriptures were not easily put in circulation. Be
sides the Agents, Colporteurs were employed wherever
Auxiliaries were feeble, and in districts where no Auxiliary
had been formed, to act as explorers to unearth and supply
families that were carelessly living without the Bible.

Under the influence of the Agents the number of Auxiliary
Societies and especially of local branches of the county
Societies increased. In 1860 there were between four thou
sand and five thousand local Bible Societies, counting the
branches and village committees. This means that as many
as one hundred thousand people were engaged in a cordial
and self-sacrificing effort to place God's word in every part
of the domestic field in co-operation with the Society.

The question has often been raised, whether Bible dis
tribution on such terms is worth while. One has only to
call to mind that it plants in every district of the home land
a single idea new to many, but which is instantly adopted by
some after studying the Bible. This idea, foreign to those
who have not the Bible reading habit, is the need of every
man to abide in obedient dependence on God. The work
of the Board of Managers in New York was like the labour
of Sisyphus, for the peculiarity of Bible distribution in a
growing nation is that it is never completed. Nevertheless
men are so closely in contact with each other that of neces
sity they bear one another's burdens and, to some degree,
they share one another's gains and advantages. An atom is
added to the common stock by each man who lives worthily.
He passes away when his work is done, but his good deeds
live in some degree among those who follow. The scatter-

1861] SIGNIFICANCE OF DISTRIBUTION 181

ing of the word of God among the settlers on the frontier
thus prepared a future for many a district now fully occu
pied, and so is to be reckoned a noteworthy factor in the de
velopment of the nation.

CHAPTER XXIII

OTHER DESTITUTE AMERICANS

ONE peculiarity of any missionary society's relation to
its enterprises is that feeble and helpless people can shape
its use of the apparatus in hand as effectively as though
having authority to command. The more helpless such
people, the more clearly relief is due. The last chapter
dealt with methods of Bible distribution developed under
pressure of a general prior claim of the home field upon the
Society. From beyond the accustomed range of the home
field thousands of people now newly came into view who
caused enormous increase in the responsibilities of the
Board, until it almost attained the standing of a foster
father to orphans. The events which brought forward
these creators of new responsibilities were the Mexican
\Yar and a period of unrest in Europe.

In 1846, thirty years of peace was broken by war with
Mexico. Like the most of such conflicts, this war was
the explosion of fiery elements that had smouldered, out
of sight, during years. Americans had settled in Texas be
fore 1830 in considerable numbers. In 1836, after seeking
in vain from the Mexican government some amelioration
of its arbitrary rule over the American settlers, the Texans
declared independence, and were recognised as an inde
pendent republic by the United States, and later by the most
of the European governments. Proposals to admit Texas
to the United States were opposed throughout the North
because, if granted, the large territory added would favour
slavery, and the weight in Congress would be increased of
those with whom the North was in ceaseless controversy.
Moreover, Mexico, framing a species of " Monroe Doc
trine " for herself, had declared that if Texas were an
nexed by the United States, that act would mean war.

182

1841-1861] HOME FIELD ENLARGED 183

In 1845 President Polk, supported by the Secretary of
State, John C. Calhoun, and the southern delegations in
Congress, considered it wise to grant the request of the
republic of Texas, refused during several years, for an
nexation to the United States, and Congress by joint resolu
tion voted the annexation. Mexico at once broke off rela
tions with the United States, and, a detachment of the
United States Army being in Texas at this time, its troops
in April, 1846, attacked this little force under General Tay
lor near the Rio Grande. Congress immediately voted war
measures, and during the next two years the United States
Army was fighting, while, American fashion, hurriedly pre
paring to fight. About a dozen serious battles took place ; in
September, 1847, the city of Mexico was captured, and on
February 2, 1848, the conquerors dictated the terms of peace.
The acquisition by the United States of lands about equal in
area to the thirteen original states of the Union was one
great result of the Mexican War. For this conquered land
fifteen million dollars were paid under the Treaty of peace.
The home field of the Bible Society was thus increased by a
region which, roughly speaking, corresponds with the states
of California, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, and a part of
Colorado.

The outbreak of war brought new demands upon the
Bible Society. Calls from Texas for Scriptures and the
establishment of Auxiliary Bible Societies there had al
ready brought the Society into cordial relations with the
people of that little-known province of Mexico. The men
of the United States army were supplied with Bibles and
Testaments, and the advance of the army into Mexico
opened access to the Spanish speaking people of Mexico.
Scriptures were issued for troops as they marched from
home by the Cincinnati Young Men's Bible Society, by the
New Orleans Bible Society, by chaplains at Vicksburg, Mis
sissippi, to the officers of the army and to the troops sent
west to occupy California ; a thousand volumes were sent to
the Texas Auxiliary Bible Societies, and the local Auxil
iaries in New York, Boston, Pittsburg and Charleston, South
Carolina, were energetic in supplying troops passing through
these cities. So it came to pass that a large proportion of

1 84 MORE DESTITUTE AMERICANS [1841-

the soldiers going to Mexico took with them Scriptures is
sued by the Society.

The opportunity to reach Mexicans also was seriously
taken in hand by the Board in 1847, when it decided to send
as its Agent to Mexico the Rev. W. R. Norris, formerly a
missionary in Buenos Aires, who had learned the Spanish
language and had proved himself throughly efficient.
Equipped with some thousands of Bibles and Testaments
in English, Spanish, French and German, Mr. Norris reached
the United States army in Yera Cruz toward the end of
the year. His power for meeting the difficulties of his
rather perplexing mission lay in his thorough belief in the
old saying that " one man with God is in the majority."
This agency was successful at least in placing the Bible in
the hands of many Mexicans who read it carefully and
were thus prepared to give a cordial reception to American
missionaries in after years.

During this period questions reared themselves unex
pectedly, sometimes north and sometimes south of the
line, out of the institution of slavery. Like a wild grass
in a lawn, that sends out roots underground to invade choice
flower beds, each fragment of root endowed with persistence
of life that seems to defy eradication, the institution showed
itself on every side. The Mexican War was probably in
evitable; but its outbreak at the time might be laid to the
eagerness of slave-holders to insure their influence in Con
gress. In hope of calming the controversy over the proposal
to annex Texas, the American Government just at this time
secured from Great Britain a treaty acknowledging the
rights of the United States over the territory of " Oregon,"
later carved into the states of Oregon, Washington and
Nevada. This gain it was hoped would, by balancing the
addition of Texas to the South, satisfy the North. The
addition of so immense a territory to the home field was
to the Bible Society a discovery of great communities who
are famine stricken, and therefore compel attention and
succour. These great Spanish speaking populations and
Indian populations were generally ignorant of what makes
men worth while, ensures a tranquil life, and is the basis of
mere business prosperity. Thus the backward Mexicans

1861] FRICTION 185

and the Indians, as well as the settlers in all the new ter
ritories, unseen and unknown to the Board at New York,
unwittingly compelled it to supply with Scriptures masses
of people not before included in the plans for the domestic
field.

Meanwhile the two sections of the country were steadily
drifting apart. An antagonism grew up akin to those class
antagonisms where each body in the social order considers
its vested rights to be unjustly attacked. In the North
Southerners were regarded as devoid of elementary moral
sense, while in the South the people dreaded any extension
of the notions of the " Yankees " as they dreaded Northern
frosts which untimely destroyed their crops.

The central figure in this fateful antagonism was a man
or woman who had no rights, so that social and political
authorities were free from obligation to humanize the master
of slaves when his conduct seemed other than humane.
The life of the slave, at its best, left little room for aspira
tion and development. The field hands, especially, divided
their life into three unequal portions: toiling in the fields,
eating, and sleeping. Few of the slaves could read. Many
of their masters were unwilling to let them learn to read
because a slave rebellion was the Southern planter's bogey.
Among the house servants, in some cases, a few were per
mitted by the master or mistress to take lessons in reading
from the warm-hearted children of the manor. The great
body of the slaves of the plantations, however, were looked
upon by people of the New England States as groaning
by reason of bondage, like Israel in Egypt.

Many good people in the Northern States thought that
the Bible Society ought to send Bibles to comfort the slaves.
In 1834 the Board of Managers had stated its principle of
supplying every race destitute of the Scriptures ; leaving
responsibility for the details of distribution in the United
States, however, to the wisdom and piety of the local Aux
iliary Societies, aided, if need be, by grants from the Bible
House. In 1845 the Board had to re-publish the statement
of 1834, again pointing out that co-operation in this good
work belonged to the Board, while the detailed measures
of distribution were the privilege and duty of the local

1 86 MORE DESTITUTE AMERICANS [1841-

Auxiliaries. It later called attention to an example of
work for slaves in which the Society had engaged in a
small way. A missionary supported by a church in one of
the northern counties of Alabama among the coloured peo
ple asked the Bible Society for books. He was furnished
a grant of thirty Bibles and four hundred Testaments, the
more gladly since he could discover the coloured people who
could read. All such opportunities the Board was glad to
use.

New agitation in the North led in 1848 to the formation
of the Free Soil political party ; and again requests show
ered upon the Board for a general distribution of Scrip
tures among the coloured people in the South. Individuals
in the Northern States undertook to raise a large fund which
would embarrass the Bible Society should it not undertake
to furnish all slaves with the Scriptures.

The subject was of grave importance, but seemed to
be imperfectly understood. The Board, therefore, issued
a frank statement recalling previous demands of the same
tenor, and the Society's desire to furnish the Bible to all
classes able to use it. The statement cited the original plan
by which the Society was expected to distribute Scriptures
mostly through local Auxiliaries, some of which were large
state institutions organised before the national Society, and
becoming connected with it as do all Auxiliaries by two
simple pledges ; namely, to circulate the Scriptures without
note or comment and to pay over surplus revenues to the
general Society. In all other respects they were more
independent of the general Society than the several states
in the Union in relation to the federal government. This
relation to Auxiliary Societies, the Board added, it would
not disturb even if it had the power. If the Board were
to intervene in the fields of Auxiliary Societies, a great
number of them, overshadowed like grasses under a spread
ing tree, would sink into torpor and soon become extinct.

As to the question, how far local Auxiliaries should rea
sonably be expected to supply the coloured people of the
South, the Managers declared that " no Bible Society in
any place is bound to perform all sorts of duty. It is an
institution with one great object. It is not formed for

i86i] DUTY OF SOCIETIES TO SLAVES 187

purposes of education, or missions, or the correction of civil
laws ; but it is formed for the purpose of circulating the word
of God as far as practicable among all classes and condi
tions of men who are capable of using it. So far as there
are coloured freemen or slaves within the limits of an
Auxiliary who can be reached, who are capable of reading
the blessed word of God, and are without it, they should
unquestionably be supplied with it, as \vell as any other
class. This duty is plain and imperative ; so plain that the
Board knows not a Bible Society in the South which calls
it in question."

As to the question whether collection of money would
simplify the problem of Bible work among slaves, the
Board said that there was an almost universal inability
among slaves to read, and an indisposition to instruct them
equally extensive. Funds in the hands of any Bible Society
could not remove these obstacles ; and distributions on any
considerable scale could not usefully be made before their
removal. If numerous slaves in the South able to read
the Bible were yet without it, and their holders consented
to their being supplied, then collections of money would
help to meet so important a demand. By formal and unani
mous resolution the Board declared its policy to be the use
of every opportunity for furthering Bible distribution among
the slaves but it asked those who contribute to the Bible
Society to consider " whether it is wise to restrict contri
butions to an object which can only be attained gradually;
the funds for which remain in part unexpended, while
elsewhere people equally destitute and more accessible are
left unsupplied." This agitation over the slavery question
was hardly more than a summons to be ready for labours
sure to be called for some day, and from this time another
expansion of the Society's responsibilities at home was fore
seen.

Another such expansion began in a small way in Oregon.
The first settlers were hunters and trappers, who established
themselves on the coast to collect furs, and opened friendly
trade relations with the Indians. The whole country was
occupied by tribes of Indians who gauged the value of
the region from the standpoint of the game-warden. They

i88 MORE DESTITUTE AMERICANS [1841-

were nomad hunters, each tribe owning a certain strip of
land valuable as a game preserve and a fishing privilege.
The Indian's title to the land was the tomahawk, promptly
used on any stranger who seemed to be a competitor. On
the other hand the white men who flocked into the country
after its recognition as a part of the United States, valued
the land from the standpoint of the farmer and the industrial
worker. Even the streams had value in terms of water power.

The Indians and the whites, then, differing as to the
purpose for which Oregon existed, were pretty sure to
clash as soon as they faced each other without interpreters
able patiently to explain good-will as understood by the two
parties. Consequently the story of the relations between
the settlers and the Indians is unpleasant. In one part or
another of this great region the settlers were at war with
the Indians from 1845 almost constantly until 1855, and
again in 1858. In fact, taking into account the Shoshone
War and the Modoc War, that region was not free from
bloodshed until the Indians were confined to reservations
about 1875.

Missions to the Indians of Oregon were established by
the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1834 and by the A. B.
C. F. M. in 1836. Grants of Scriptures were made by
the Bible Society to these, the American Home Missionary
Society, and other missions.

The Oregon Auxiliary Bible Society was organised, \vhere
Portland now stands, in 1850 and the Clatsop County Aux
iliary, near the mouth of the Colombia, in 1851. Rev. Mr.
Phillips was sent to Oregon as Agent of the American Bible
Society in 1853. He reported that the sturdy adventurers
on the Pacific coast often showed real delight on finding
the Society represented there by its Scriptures. Having
suffered in the long, weary journey and many having lost
their Bibles with other goods, would fain replenish their
stock. The larger part of the Scriptures sent to Oregon
in this period went into the hands of settlers.

In 1847, 250,000 immigrants landed in the United States,
in large part fugitives from the famine in Ireland. They
were worn with fatigues of the long voyage, but eager to
find the work which would put them in a position better

i86i] FOR THE SUPPLY OF IMMIGRANTS 189

than they had ever known. In 1848 other immigrants be
gan to pour into the country in consequence of the con
vulsions which shook the monarchies of Europe. From

1849 to 1853 an average of one thousand immigrants landed
every day. Every sailing vessel, brig, bark, or stately ship
which took the long voyage of six to eight weeks across
the ocean from European ports, brought numbers of dream
ers that El Dorado lay within the growing republic. In

1850 ten new states had been added to the Union since the
Bible Society was organised, and these ten states had ac
quired a population almost equal to that of the whole coun
try in 1816. The Society had already provided itself with
Scriptures in various languages, and had supplied, either
directly or through the local Bible Societies and the general
home missionary societies, immigrants in New York State,
Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri and Wisconsin. In
1854 the Southwestern Bible Society at New Orleans dis
tributed 10,000 volumes in thirteen languages obtained from
the American Bible Society. In 1858 it placed Testaments
or portions of Scripture in the hands of people from thirty
different nations speaking twenty languages. The New
York Bible Society made it a point, as far as possible, to
meet every man as he landed with a Testament in his own
language, obtained from the national Society and offered
to him by a man of his own nation. Hon. Samuel J. Walker,
former Secretary of the United States Treasury, prepared
a resolution which was adopted by the Washington City
Bible Society and forwarded to New York, urging the
preparation of a Testament in Spanish and English for use
among the multitudes of Spanish speaking citizens in Cali
fornia and the other territories acquired from Mexico.
This was done, and Testaments were printed in German,
Italian, Dutch, and Norwegian, with the English version
in parallel columns, so that the newcomers might be helped
to acquire the English language. These people maintained
their roots, so to speak, in many foreign lands. Only a
small proportion of the immigrants knew anything about
the Bible, even as a rule of ethics. Many rejoiced in the
idea that liberty is freedom from restraint of law.

These strangers, left like neglected apple trees to follow

190 MORE DESTITUTE AMERICANS [1841-

their own nature, would be sure, notwithstanding a show
of prosperity, to become morally debased, corrupt and cor
rupting. Chancellor Ferris, of the New York University,
who was chairman of the Distribution Committee at this
time, drew a contrast between the expectation of friends
of the Society in past years and the actual situation. A few
years ago, he said, it was thought that the country would
soon be completely supplied with Bibles, so that there would
be little for the Society to do in the United States. But
he pointed out, now that God is pouring upon the land a
multitude of immigrants from the old world which is cer
tain to increase, all Auxiliary Bible Societies, all churches,
all Christians should rise to the emergency and supply the
Society with funds for the great extension of its labours
clearly foreseen.

It is hard to realise the burden which at this time rested
upon the souls of the members of the Board and the Secre
taries. All felt that these people must be encouraged to read
the Bible since it is the will of God, and since that book helps
men to be law-abiding citizens. Among the immigrants some
were prepared to accept new ideas of life and growth. The
members of the Board knew that if the Society could in
crease the circulation of the Bible among these strangers,
no matter whence the alien might come, he would surely
be a blessing to the land.

Besides the principles which had always urged activity in
the work of Bible distribution, the occurrences mentioned
in this chapter brought to light a principle equally funda
mental with the others, that destitution has in itself a claim
to be supplied. This is a natural requirement like the de
mand of the heart that tenderness be shown to infants on
account of their helplessness. Wherefore the extension of
labour always awaiting a Bible Society is immeasurable.

CHAPTER XXIV

A VISION OF PERPETUAL GROWTH

IN 1846 the Society at its annual meeting was greatly
stirred by the prophetic vision of unlimited progress now
opening before the Society. It directed the Board of Man
agers to arrange to print at least seven hundred and fifty
thousand volumes during the year ending with March, 1847,
and to plan for at least one million volumes of issues in the
next year.

The Board abandoned the contract system of printing its
books ; bought new and improved presses ; considerably re
duced the cost of books ; but at the end of the year found
that notwithstanding these efforts, the issues from the press
were more than one hundred thousand volumes less than
had been called for by the Society. They also discovered
the reason for this shortage. The Society's House was too
small to receive the presses required for so great editions.

A daring flight of imagination was needed to believe that
more space was necessary than the existing House, by an
enlargement, could be made to yield. The great expansion
of the field described in the last chapter, however, stirred
the Board of Managers like a revelation. Members of the
Board began to perceive the scope of the duty laid upon the
Society from its very birth, and they decided to build a
new house in accord with the thrilling vision. In July,
1847, a lot was contracted for on Chambers Street extending
through to Reade Street which would accommodate a build
ing almost twice as large as the Society's House in Nassau
Street.

Disappointment came to the Board when it was compelled
to give up the purchase of the Chambers Street plot on
account of unsatisfactory surroundings and a doubtful
validity of title. Yet it was perfectly clear that the demand
for Scriptures would soon exceed the possibility of supply

191

192 VISION OF PERPETUAL GROWTH [1841-

with the existing equipment. From 1836 to 1841 the aver
age annual issue of Scriptures was 160,000 volumes. In
the next five years the annual average was 340,000, and in
the five years ending in 1851 the annual average of issues
was 600,000. A committee was appointed to find a suitable
site, if possible near Broadway between Canal and Bleecker
Streets. This limitation, however, was afterwards removed,
and early in 1852 land for the new Bible House was bought;
a great plot of three quarters of an acre between Third and
Fourth Avenues, Ninth Street and Astor Place at Eighth
Street. The Committee had to explain, however, that they
bought so large a lot because a good site downtown could
not be found ; the owners would not divide this plot, but
after building a house which would accommodate the grow
ing work of the Bible Society, any excess of land could
easily be sold. The men of the Bible Society received their
sight gradually like the one at Bethsaida who before seeing
clearly had a dim stage when men seemed like trees.

When the Society began its operations John E. Caldwell,
the first Agent, kept the depository at his office in an upper
room at the corner of Nassau and Cedar Streets. Later
the books were removed to a building on Cliff Street occu
pied by Mr. Fanshaw, who had the contract for printing and
attended to the shipment of books. The books were is
sued from a room measuring nine by twelve feet. Later
a four-story building was hired for the printer in Hanover
Street, adjoining the Exchange. Here the Agent had his
office and a rear room twenty feet square for the deposi
tory. In a moment of optimism he expressed his belief that
he would yet see that room entirely filled with Bibles. In
1823 the Society's House in Nassau Street was finished
and occupied. It contained a depository capable of holding
one hundred thousand Bibles, and here the work of the
Society was done, the building having been twice enlarged,
until 1853.

After some hesitation about so great daring, the Board
decided that three quarters of an acre would be an area
none too large for a Bible House to serve the United States
and American Missions abroad. This decision of the Board
was never for a moment regretted.

i86i] THE BIBLE HOUSE ERECTED 193

The cornerstone of the Bible House in Astor Place was
laid in the presence of a large assembly. The list of articles
which the cornerstone contains is worth transcribing : one
of the first Bibles published by the Society in 1817; one of
the last edition of the Bible published in 1852; the thirty-
six annual reports of the Society ; the Bible Society Record
from 1849 to 1852; a catalogue of the Society's Biblical
Library; a copy of the report of the Versions Committee
on the collation of the English Bible; the rules of the Board
respecting principles to be followed in translation ; a pro
gramme of the exercises at the laying of the cornerstone, and
a copy of President Frelinghuysen's address.

The new Bible House had 741 feet of street front, was
six stories high, with a floor space of about three acres
besides the cellars and vaults. At the time of its completion
it was one of the finest business houses in New York City.
Its cost, with the land, was $303,000 ; but it was not built
with money given for Bible distribution. The proceeds of
the sale of the Society's House in Nassau Street were $105,-
ooo; more than twice the original cost. Fifty-nine thou
sand dollars was derived from special subscriptions made
by friends in the city. The remainder of the cost of the
building, $140,000, was borrowed upon mortgage, and the
rents during the first year amounted to $20,000 ; more than
twice the amount of the interest on the mortgage. As the
rent roll increased it finally paid off the mortgage without
further special subscriptions.

The records of the Board contain a definite mention of
the belief of its members that the plan for the new Bible
House was commensurate with the importance of the Bible
cause by providential direction. When the new site was
finally secured the Managers remembered almost with awe
their disappointment at losing the land contracted for in
Chambers Street, and they felt that the hand of the Lord
was in it. When they found that the land now acquired
on Astor Place had been assigned three several times to
other purposes by the owners, and three times the purchase
proposed had been given up, they were confirmed in the
feeling that an over-ruling providence had reserved this
land for nobler purposes.

194 VISION OF PERPETUAL GROWTH [1841-

The Building Committee, too, in its report referred to
the narrow boundaries within which the Board was con
tent to confine the Society at the outset, and compared that
limited area with the commodious spaces of the new Bible
House as showing how even the most sagacious of the Man
agers fell short of any conception of such a result as provi
dence had realised for them. Though the expenditure for
this great building was large and was entered upon without
specific action of the Board, discussion of the amount to be
expended, or of whence this money could be supplied, in
no one instance was a properly audited bill presented a sec
ond time for payment. But like the widow's cruse of oil,
the supply in the Treasury had been found equal to every
call, ceasing only with the demands of the Building Com
mittee ; and this without the use, even temporarily, of one
dollar of the ordinary contributions of the Society.

In February, 1854, the Building Committee made its final
report and received the warmest thanks of the Board for
its work. On the suggestion of Rev. Dr. S. H. Tyng of the
Protestant Episcopal Church, Rev. Dr. Gardiner Spring,
Pastor of the Brick Presbyterian Church, offered a prayer
of thanksgiving to God for His gift to the Bible Society of
this spacious and commodious house ; imploring God's bless
ing upon it that it might ever continue to send forth leaves
from the Tree of Life for the healing of the nations. All
the members of the Board felt that the call to build this
house had come as all God's calls come, arousing His serv
ants to action by revelation of a great need, even as the
vision of the man from Macedonia revealed new fields in
Europe to St. Paul.

Christians believe that they hold the Bible in trust for
the world. If this is true, to have failed to build this house
under the existing circumstances would have been to con
demn the Bible Society to a small and fruitless future.
The Board, expecting great things from God, committed it
self to a work whose length and breadth had not been im
agined. In the year of their full occupation of the new
house the issues of one month were more than in any one
year of the Society's first eleven years. In the five years
from 1846 to 1851 the average issues of each year were

1861] CHANGES AT THE BIBLE HOUSE 195

600,000 volumes. In the next five years, 1851 to 1856, the
average issues were 940,000 volumes. This quick expan
sion seemed instantly to justify the daring of the Board.

Many of the men who had laboured nobly to build up the
strength and efficiency of the Bible Society, like Moses and
Aaron as they led the people toward the Promised Land, fell
out of the ranks before this great epoch was reached, and
new workers took their places as do the reserves of an army
whose front ranks are thinned.

By the election of Rev. Dr. E. S. Janes, Financial Sec
retary, to be a l>ishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church,
the Board had to regret in 1844 a great loss to the Society.
As a successor to Dr. Janes the Rev. Dr. Noah Levings,
pastor of a Methodist Episcopal Church in New York, was
chosen financial Secretary. Dr. Levings was well qualified
for his work. At the time it was said that he had no su
perior as a platform speaker in his denomination. But in
January, 1849, while returning from a journey for the So
ciety to the South, he was taken ill and died at Cincinnati,
greatly regretted by all who knew his diligent and efficient
services as Secretary of the Society.

In April, 1845, the Bible Society was called to mourn the
death of Rev. Dr. James Milnor, for more than twenty years
a Secretary of the Society and a leader in many of its great
decisions. Dr. Milnor had ceased to perform the duties of
a Secretary some years before, but he was active in all the
affairs of the Board of Managers ; in fact, he had served as
chairman of the Anniversaries Committee in preparing for
the annual meeting of the Society held about a month after
his death. His legal training and familiarity with business
methods fitted him to render services in the Board from
which many ministers would shrink. He was remarkably
free from small prejudices. When questions difficult of
adjustment arose in the Board, they were approached by
Dr. Milnor with a frankness and sincerity that showed how7
earnestly he sought truth and right, and this habit secured
for him the confidence of his associates. His devoted and
scriptural piety made him rejoice in discovering the image
of Christ under any outward form. In the Bible cause this
noble spirit had ample scope. The last sermon which he

196 VISION OF PERPETUAL GROWTH [1841-

preached in St. George's Church two days before his death
was on Christian union. All of the members of the Board,
as well as the Secretaries of the Society, felt his death as a
personal loss.

In December, 1845, the Hon. John Cotton Smith, for
nearly fifteen years President of the Society, closed his
useful life at the age of eighty-one. He was appointed a
Vice- 1 'resident of the Society at its organisation, and be
came President in 1831. lie was an abiding patron of sound
learning and a consistent advocate of the doctrines and duties
set forth in the lioly Scriptures.

The large development of the Society in the Western
Stales seemed to make it desirable that one of the Vice-
I 'residents residing in the West should be chosen as the next
President, and the Board unanimously elected for this office
the Hon. John McLean of Ohio, one of the Justices of the
Supreme Court of the United States. Justice McLean ex
pressed regret that his duties in court in each month of
May would absolutely prevent his ever attending an annual
meeting of the Society. For this reason he declined the
office of President.

Vice-President Theodore Frelinghuysen, Chancellor of
the University of New York, was then elected and became
President of the Society in April, 1846. Chancellor Fre
linghuysen at the age of twenty-five had commanded a com
pany of soldiers in the War of 1812. Later he had become
Attorney-General of New Jersey, and in 1829 was elected
United States Senator from that state. While still Presi
dent of the Bible Society he was chosen President of Rut
gers College, New Brunswick, N. J. His fitness to stand
at the head of the Bible Society, and the important services
which he was qualified to render to it, were clear to its
friends in every part of the country.

Vice-Presidents Alexander Henry, Peter G. Stuyvesant,
John Griscom, who represented the Society of Friends in
the Convention of 1816 which organised the Society, Hu
bert Van Wagenen, who had been connected with the So
ciety for thirty years, and Judge Duncan Cameron of North
Carolina, passed away during this period. Among members
of the Board of Managers who finished their work about

i86i] DEATH OF JOHN QUIXCY ADAMS 197

this time the name of John Aspinwall is to be noted. He
became a member of the Board of Managers in 1816 and
his name was signed as auditor to every one of the Treasury
accounts from the organisation of the Society up to the
time of his death in 1847.

Before the next Annual Meeting of the Society the Hon.
John Quincy Adams died. He was chosen Vice-President
in 1817, and later filled the high office of President of the
United States during four years. lie was a hearty and
unswerving friend of the Society until the time of his death
on the 23rd of February, 1848. The esteem with which he
was regarded was shown by the expressions of bereavement
which came from thousands in widely separated regions.

The increase in the amount of correspondence, due, per
haps, to the great extension of the Auxiliary system, made
it necessary to appoint more Secretaries. In January, 1849,
the Rev. S. I. Prime was elected Secretary, lie was a pas
tor of Presbyterian churches in the state of New York until
1840, when throat troubles compelled him to give up preach
ing. After some strenuous tours for the Society a return
of the same throat troubles obliged Secretary Prime to re
sign his position after one year of service. In 1849, the
Rev. Joseph Holdich, D.D., a prominent Methodist Epis
copal minister who was at the time Professor of Moral
Science in Wesleyan University, and in 1853 Rev. James
McNeill, a Presbyterian pastor from North Carolina, were
elected Secretaries to fill the vacancies caused by the resig
nation of Mr. Prime and the death of Dr. Levings.

The Rev. Joseph C. Stiles of Savannah, Ga., a Presby
terian Evangelist in the South and Southwest, who in 1848
became pastor of the Mercer Street Presbyterian Church
in New York, resigned his pastorate on account of ill-
health, and in 1850 became Secretary of the Society with
special reference to work in the Southern States. He re
signed this office in 1852 and returned to the pastorate.

The burden of correspondence grew more and more
heavy as the years went by, and in 1855 the Board decided
to relieve the Secretaries of the duty of attending General
Conferences and Synods of ecclesiastical bodies. The Rev.
Moses L. Scudder was appointed General Delegate to

198 PERPETUAL GROWTH [1841-1861

represent the Bible Society at such meetings of the church
courts.

In spite of perplexities on every side the addition of ter
ritory and population to the United States expressed a clear
command to the Society as a missionary organisation. The
annual meeting on the 8th of May 1856, therefore, formally
resolved that for the second time the Society should under
take to place a Bible in every destitute family throughout
the United States which was willing to receive it. A gen
eral circular was issued calling upon the people to co-oper
ate in this work, noting that the population of the country
had been doubled since the first general supply, and was
now more than twenty-six millions. The circular insisted
that this work must not be slighted as a mere enterprise
of men. It was an undertaking to which God Himself
called His people. Every Christian should aid by assuming
some definite part of this task. Happily, this appeal fur
nished a good illustration of the pervasive quality of Chris
tian principle which drives men into action even as St. John
was forced into action in the vision when he ate the book,
although warned beforehand that later it would bring1 bit
terness.

On account of the vast extent of the land and its widely
scattered population, more than four years were occupied
in the work. It was pressed with earnestness, and 3,678,837
volumes were distributed to those willing to read the Bible.
In 1856 the states and territories which existed when the
supply began had been pretty thoroughly supplied, and by
1860 territories which at the beginning of the undertaking
were unorganized had received thousands of copies. The
great fact of this distribution was that the multitude newly
affected and animated by the teachings of the Bible would
give tone to generations yet to come. From this point of
view the most exigent and possibly the most fruitful field
of the Society was and is the domestic field ; without neg
lect, however, of the foreign field wherever American mis
sionaries labour.

CHAPTER XXV

A CLEARING HOUSE FOR NEEDS

EACH year the Bible House in New York became more
surely a clearing house for the wants of people of diverse
tongues. As immigration increased, Scriptures in the Euro
pean languages were printed in the Bible House in New
York instead of being imported in small quantities. During
the whole period from 1841 to 1861 the Spanish version
of the Bible took a large place in discussions of the Com
mittee and of the Board because of the dislike of Spanish
speaking Americans for the quaint and obsolete terms found
in the Valera version. Various attempts were made to im
prove this version. In 1860 the Board finally announced
that a new edition of the Spanish Bible would have the
advantage of all revisions which had taken place during
previous years. The Portuguese Bible which had been pur
chased from the British and Foreign Bible Society was now
so much in demand that a set of plates was ordered from
London, and Portuguese Scriptures began to be printed at
the Bible House in New York. During this same period a
Welsh Bible with references, a Hawaiian Testament with
English in parallel columns, and a German Bible for which
new plates were made from the best edition of the Canstein
Bible, were printed at the Bible House. In 1858 the Bible
in Modern Armenian was electrotyped and printed there.
The type was set up by compositors, some of whom knew
not a single letter of the Armenian alphabet, the eminent
linguist and missionary, Elias Riggs, the translator of the
version, giving close supervision to the work.

From its first year the Bible Society had taken interest in
the welfare of Indians throughout the country; work for
them being classed by common consent with work for " for
eigners." In 1834 a grant was made to the American

199

200 A CLEARING HOUSE FOR NEEDS [1841-

Board's Missionaries, S. R. Riggs and Williamson, for print
ing portions of the Scriptures in the Sioux or Dakota lan
guage for the use of missionaries of two or three denomina
tions. About the same time the New Testament of the
Ojibwa (Chippeway) version, translated by the Rev. Sher
man Hall of the American Board, was printed at the Bible
House, and the good missionary expressed the hope that the
Scriptures in Ojibwa and those in the Dakota language
might break down the fierce enmity between Sioux and
Ojibwa Indians. In 1844, a grant of some seven hundred
dollars was made to the American Board for the expense
of printing parts of the Bible in Cherokee, translated by Rev.
Mr. Worcester. Shortly afterwards grants were made to
the American Board for printing Scriptures in Choctaw.

That there was benefit in the dissemination of the Bible
among the Indians was clear from the fact that the missions
were successful. Bishop Kemper of a Protestant Episcopal
Mission on the borders of Canada, in writing for a grant
of one hundred copies of the Book of Isaiah in the Mohawk
language, casually mentioned as though it was nothing sur
prising that in his mission among the Mohawks there were
ninety-nine faithful Indian communicants; and the Board
was astonished and delighted a few years later to receive ap
plication from Choctaws and from Cherokees for recogni
tion as local Bible Societies, auxiliary to the American Bible
Society.

All this work of preparing versions in different lan
guages was in the same vein as the labour spent upon books
for the blind ; for what is translation of the Bible into the
spoken language of any people but opening the eyes of those
who cannot see the truth ?

The condition of the blind, cut off from sharing the life
of the nation, isolated both by their own impotence and by
the dulness of many who are not able to feel the meaning
of blindness, is always a silent appeal for sympathy. The
Board of Managers had helped Dr. Howe in his splendid
work for the blind, and in April, 1843, the stereotype plates
in line letter for the whole Bible were at length finished at
a total cost of ten thousand dollars. Within the next ten
years about four hundred volumes of Scripture had been

1861] REQUESTS FROM ALL QUARTERS 201

distributed to blind persons. Some of these books went to
the West Indies, some to Central and South America, and
some to Turkey. They went into thirteen states of the
Union ; this kindly help being rendered without noise or
pride although each person who received the Book rejoiced
as much as if on a ship in mid-ocean he had received a wire
less message from a dear friend at home.

From all parts of the country and for many kinds of sup
plies, applications as eager as the pleas of men in a " bread
line " came from Christian workers. These were dealt with
under the general rule that, where possible, Auxiliary So
cieties should do what ought to be done. This rule, how
ever, did serve where no Auxiliary could be found. All
requests and suggestions from such districts were dealt with
sympathetically and thoughtfully in the Board Room. Of
this latter class was the proposal to put Scriptures in hotels
in different parts of the country. Many travellers would be
pleased to find the Book in their rooms. The Board de
cided in 1846 that any hotel would be supplied with Scrip
tures on payment of half of the cost of the books. At the
suggestion of the Hon. S. Wells Williams, who had travelled,
perhaps, by the overland route from California, the Board
freely granted Bibles to be placed in each of the overland
stage stations.

The cholera epidemic of 1849 and the opening of Cali
fornia to gold seekers both brought difficulties to the brave
workers in the Western States struggling to do their share
in Bible distribution. By the immense emigration to the
gold regions many districts were almost stripped of the more
active part of their population. Hundreds on whom the
Bible Society relied for help were taken off as by a tidal
wave. Letters to officers of the Auxiliary Societies many
times brought no answer or came back marked " gone to
California." The Auxiliaries found themselves in difficulty,
too, because much ready money was taken out of the com
munity by those undertaking that tremendous journey across
the plains and the mountains to the new El Dorado.

The San Francisco Bible Society had to deal with many
different nationalities. Thousands of Chinese were pour
ing into California, stopping in camp at San Francisco for a

202 A CLEARING HOUSE FOR NEEDS [1841-

short time, and then scattering through the mining regions.
Efforts were made to reach this nomad crowd with portions
of Scripture, Air. Duel, the Agent for California, and some
of his assistants committing to memory a sentence or two of
Chinese that they might show friendliness to these wan
derers from the Ear East and help them to understand the
aim of the book that was placed in their hands. San Fran
cisco quickly became a strategic point with reference to the
long stretch of the coast and the regions beyond the Pacific.
Accordingly, in 1853, the San Francisco Bible Society built
a Bible House which would serve as a depository for the
Board in New York. Orders would come to the San Fran
cisco depository in the same day, perhaps, from Oregon and
from the Sandwich Islands. At that time an order sent
from the Sandwich Islands to New York might be expected
to bring a consignment of books to Honolulu in about one
year. On the other hand, a well-assorted stock at the Bible
House in San Francisco would ensure that those ordering
from the Sandwich Islands would receive the books in two
months' time. A similar promptness of supply was regis
tered by the Agent in Oregon when he ordered Bibles from
San Francisco.

In the midst of the great labour imposed upon the Board
by the multitudes of immigrants and settlers moving into the
Western land, it was with satisfaction that the Board re
ceived applications from the American Tract Society for
grants of Scriptures to be distributed by its colporteurs.
Such applications soon became so frequent as to call for a
definite understanding with the Tract Society about the
methods of its colporteurs. Valuable as was the help ren
dered by these men outside of the field of an Auxiliary Bible
Society a careless tract distributor might easily interfere
with the work of the Auxiliaries, if not advised to avoid
competition. Difficulties were found to arise from the con
fusion sometimes created in the minds of the people when
Tract distributors offered to sell books of the Bible Society.
Overlapping seemed inevitable, when Tract Society workers
unintentionally entered the field of an active Auxiliary.
After some discussion between the two Societies, the officers
of the Tract Society expressed entire agreement with the

i86i] BIBLE BURNING 203

rules for the use of grants laid down by the Board of Man
agers and considerable numbers of Scriptures were at that
time distributed by Tract Society colporteurs in those parts
of the great western region which was yet unexplored by the
agents of the Bible Society.

Such efforts as the Society was making throughout the
land could hardly fail to excite enemies of the Bible. In
1842, the Champlain Bible Society, a branch of the Clinton
County, New York, Auxiliary Society, finding many French
Canadians settling in its field, distributed French Scriptures
among them, which were well received. In November of
the same year Father Telmonde, a Jesuit priest from Mon
treal, suddenly appeared at Corbeau, one of the French
settlements in the Champlain township, and raved like a
madman against the Protestants who had supplied the
Canadian settlers with the Bible. lie seems to have for
gotten that he was a visitor in a free country and scared
Roman Catholics by an arrogated authority until he suc
ceeded in collecting about one hundred of the Bibles. These
he brought together at Corbeau, tore off the covers and gave
them to the men to use in stropping their razors, and burned
the books in a rather barbaric public ceremony. Having
thus violated the peace of an American village, he escaped
to Canada unpunished. To Protestants, of course, the act
was sacrilegious, and aroused anger by its arrogance. It
was an insult to the American people, as well as an outrage
on the immigrants who gave up books which they prized.

However, Father Telmonde did not check Bible work. It
is always better to overcome opposition than to be spared it.
Professor Deems of the University of North Carolina,
speaking on another subject, mentioned the objection raised
by some people that if the Bible Society scatters Bibles
promiscuously, many will sell them and take the money to
buy whiskey. " Let them sell them ! " said Professor Deems,
" the Book is still in existence, still full of heavenly energy
for any who wrill read it." The truth of this philosophical
remark was vindicated at Corbeau. One woman, even when
threatened by Father Telmonde, flatly refused to give up her
Bible, saying, " It is the best of books." And she kept it.
Many of the Roman Catholics \vere indignant at the outrage ;

204 A CLEARING HOUSE FOR NEEDS [1841-

for they recognised robbery when they ruminated over the
action of the priest. After a few years it was discovered
that the man foremost in assisting the priest in the Bible
burning, stirring up the fire with a long pole in order to
make the books burn more thoroughly, became conscience-
smitten for what he had done, abandoned the Roman Catholic
church, and joined the Protestant mission at Grande Ligne
in Canada. In the little settlement where the Bibles were
burned, three of the families left the Roman for the Protes
tant church, and one of the men became a Bible colporteur
among his own people in consequence of the violence which
woke him up, much as a man asleep on a bank by the side of
a brook may be wakened by a hailstorm, unpleasant, but use
ful as sending him to shelter before a heavy rain.

A chief element of the strength of the Bible Society is,
of course, the warm interest of the numbers who support it
with their thoughts, their prayers, and their gifts. Every
now and then a kindly word of sympathy from a man high
in the councils of the nation, brings encouragement to those
engaged in the ceaseless labour of the Society.

In February, 1844, a general Bible convention was held in
Washington, the place of meeting being the hall of the
House of Representatives. In that crowded hall ex-Presi
dent John Quincy Adams presided as senior vice-President
of the American Bible Society. In an address full of fire
he set forth the value and power of the Holy Scriptures, and
his own affection for the Society which labours to extend
their circulation.

General Zachary Taylor, fresh from the Mexican War, in
1849 became President of the United States. In 1850 some
ladies of Frankfort, Kentucky, presented him with a Bible
beautifully bound with the constitution of the United States.
President Taylor revealed his opinion of the Bible in his let
ter of thanks. He said, " I accept with gratitude and pleas
ure your gift of this inestimable volume. If there were
nothing in that book but its great precept, ' All things whatso
ever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to
them,' and if that precept were obeyed, our government
might extend over the whole continent." In June of the
same year a Presbyterian Sunday School in Patterson, New

1861] INFLUENCE OF THE BIBLE 205

Jersey, made a contribution constituting President Taylor a
Life Director of the Bible Society. His letter of acknowledg
ment written on the fifth day of July, after the commence
ment of the severe illness which, to the grief of the nation,
proved fatal a few days later, contained these words : "I
accept with the liveliest emotions of gratitude this compli
mentary testimonial which has associated my name with an
institution so comprehensive in its usefulness and efficiency
as a means of good as the American Bible Society. Be
lieving that our prosperity and greatness as a nation, no less
than our happiness as individuals, is in direct proportion to
our observance of the teachings of that Book in which the
holy religion is revealed, I cannot be indifferent to those
labours which tend to diffuse its instructions and render it
more accessible to all."

Reports of Agents and colporteurs during this period give
glimpses of the influence of the Bible upon the nation. The
book went among men and women too busy to pray or to
think of God except when in pain or terror, qualified perhaps
to be attractive as flowers in a well-kept garden, but starved
in their souls like a rosebush choked with weeds. In a
town in Illinois one hundred and two persons who had been
indifferent to religion, hardly knowing the name of Christ
except as profaned in assertion or threat, during 1848 be
came warm-hearted members of the church, after a Bible
Society Agent had sold in that town one hundred dollars'
worth of Bibles. In Wisconsin a Roman Catholic woman,
very religious in her fashion, showed some annoyance when
her husband let a belated traveller lodge in their house.
After the stranger had retired for the night the woman took
up one of the books which he had laid on a shelf, curious to
see what made people buy them. It was a Bible. She had
never heard of the Bible and she looked into it. The beauti
ful words held her fascinated until the day dawned. That
chance access to the Bible changed the woman's life, and
some months later the Bible colporteur had the satisfaction
of learning that she had cast in her lot with the neighbouring
Protestant church.

Among the immigrants \vere some easily interested in
Bible work. Picture, for instance, a German widow in

2o6 A CLEARING HOUSE FOR NEEDS [1841-

Ohio, with her four unmarried daughters, weaving, spinning,
sewing, selling butter and eggs, for one great purpose.
They worked for their living, but the purpose w-as not fully
rounded out until they had each given thirty dollars for a
Life Membership in the Bible Society. A German farmer
in the same district dug out of the ground, as it were, Life
•Memberships for all the members of his family, amounting
to $210 altogether. Another German woman who had
settled in Auburn, New York, begged the Agent to write her
message to the Society. " I want to tell them," she said,
" how much thankful I am for the Bible. I wish I could
tell how hungry 1 was for the Bible and good books in Ger
man ; so hungry, not for bread and water, but for the Bible.
And after I got it, I be so glad ! "

Professor Deems of the University of North Carolina
\vrote to the Bible Society in 1843 of a settlement in Wake
County called Flat Rivers. This place for eighty years had
been infamous as a Sodom. The people were unclean and
profane, fearing not God nor regarding man. In 1830, dur
ing the first General Supply, a IHble Society colporteur \vent
to Flat Rivers, visited thirty-four families, gave away thirty-
three Bibles (for in one house he found a Bible), received
in return forty cents, paid more than one dollar for board
and lodging, and went away. Thirteen years after this visit
the place had entirely changed, and in every one of the houses
where a Bible was left some, at least, of the members of the.
family were pious, God-fearing people. Professor Deems
remarks on two points concerning Bible distribution which
are worth carrying in mind. In the first place Christians
may so neglect neighbours who have not the Bible that an
entire settlement close at hand may become degenerate ; and
in the second place, where the Bible is used by any family or
community, it quickly lifts them to a higher plane.

A significant feature of the story of the Society has been
the support given to it by thousands of day-labourers. There
was a little Auxiliary Society in New York known as the
Fulton County Auxiliary. One day a plainly dressed
woman came to the annual meeting of that Society. She
said she had come six miles to attend the meeting and men
tioned that her home was five or six miles from any meeting

i86i] GRATEFUL GIVERS TO CHRIST 207

house. She had neighbours who lived without the Bible
and she wanted to supply them. Eight dollars and fifty-
four cents she had brought with her and she was furnished
with Bibles and Testaments.

The next year the same woman appeared at the annual
meeting with fifteen dollars and thirty-eight cents. Dur
ing fourteen years this woman acted as a branch Bible
Society, herself long being the sole member. She came
every year bringing small sums of money, part to pay for
books that she had distributed, and part as a dona
tion for the Society. After a time two younger women
came with her to the Bible meeting to take up the work of
Bible distribution. A number of years later the "Fulton
County Bible Society found that these poor women, moved
by love of Christ like the woman who poured the precious
ointment upon His feet, had paid into the Treasury of the
Society altogether $813.62. If every district in the country
had Bible workers of this earnest, persistent type, the whole
world would soon be filled with Bibles.

CHAPTER XXVI

TURBULENT EUROPE

TITK year 1848 was notable for upheavals in all Europe.
\Yhere nations simultaneously break the bonds by which
kings have shaped the fortunes of the people, we may look
for great rational causes in vain. Small material troubles
like "famine and high prices lead the people to think their
rulers incapable, as is probably the case. At all events, in
France poor harvests and the cost of living in 1847 led the
people of Paris in February, 1848, to drive away Lafayette's
" Citizen King " Louis Phillipe, like the manager of an es
tate dispossessed while sure that his position has placed him
above criticism. This outbreak of the Parisians kept the
country unsettled throughout the year. In December Prince
Louis Napoleon was elected President of the Republic of
France, and laid plans for ruling, as soon as might be, as
Emperor.

The expulsion of Louis Phillipe from France was an ob
ject lesson to the rest of Europe. Fire applied to a boiler
makes no change in the appearance of the water for some
time. Then a single bubble of steam appears at some point,
and shortly with sufficient heat, the whole mass of water
may be converted into steam at once, and rend its restrain
ing iron with a tremendous explosion. Something of this
sort followed the suggestion that it is possible for a people
to tell a king to get out of the way of their progress. Be
fore the year 1848 was through, Ferdinand, Emperor of
Austria, had been driven from Vienna and gave up his
throne ; the Pope had fled from Rome in terror ; the King
of Prussia barely escaped being sent away from Berlin ; sev
eral of the small states into which Italy was divided drove
out their grand dukes and princes, and insurrection every-

208

1841-1861] A CRY FOR HELP 209

where seemed on the point of expelling monarchy from the
continent.

North Italy, that is, Lombardy and Venice, revolted
against the king of Naples ; Mazzini proclaimed the Italian
Republic at about the same time that the French Republic
was declared. Under Louis Kossuth the Hungarian people
made a bold dash for freedom from Austria, and marched
their army upon Vienna.

March, 1848, brought with it insurrections in Vienna, in
Budapest, in Berlin. Then the tide turned and with it
kings came back. Before the year was through French
troops had occupied Rome for the Pope ; Francis Joseph had
taken the crown of Austria, succeeding his uncle Ferdinand.
By the middle of 1850 the Austrians again oppressed north
ern Italy ; the Pope had abolished the liberal constitution in
Rome; Kossuth had fled to America, and the dream of lib
erty for European peoples faded like other dreams.

These facts have a place in this story, because an impulse
like that of the Good Samaritan drew the American Bible
Society into close relations with the sufferers in troubled
Europe. In France the revolution naturally brought oppor
tunity for a wide distribution of Scriptures. Even a care
less, pleasure loving people becomes thoughtful when the
whole social structure seems to be falling to pieces.

But the disturbances which made the opportunity cut off
local means of using it. Who should furnish means but the
American Bible Society? There were no cables, no tele
graphs, no quick steamers across the ocean in those clays,
and so a special messenger was sent from the French and
Foreign Bible Society to New York to tell the story of its
dire need. This messenger, the Rev. Mr. Bridel, addressed
the Annual Meeting of the Society in May, 1848. He said
that the French Bible Society had been in successful opera
tion until the recent political movements reduced to poverty
some of the wealthiest friends of the Society, and had thus
wrecked its resources and crippled its hands. Printing was
suspended, colporteurs had been discharged. France, now a
republic, like a younger sister appealed for help.

The Society at its Annual Meeting voted " that it is the
clear and palpable duty of this Society to listen to these

210 TURBULENT EUROPE [1841-

calls, and that the Managers he therefore advised to raise
and remit to I 'ranee the sum of $10,000 this year and a like
sum for the succeeding year." Rev. Mr. Kirk of Boston
strongly supported this resolution, referring to the unusual
crisis when all have heard the rolling of the awful chariot
wheels of God whose hand sways the nations. Rev. Dr. S.
H. Tyng remarked that a gentleman in New York had of
fered to give a thousand dollars if the Society would raise
ten thousand. He himself would agree to raise five hundred
more, and he hoped pledges would quickly follow for the
whole ten thousand dollars. Mr. Kirk promised one hun
dred dollars. Secretary Brigham called attention to the
well established custom for the Society to act through its
Auxiliaries, and doubtless prompt action of the Auxiliaries
in this matter would be secured. As a result $10,000 \vas
sent to France during the year.

Difficulties were met in raising the second instalment of
$10,000 to be sent to France during 1849. In fact, only
$1,000 was sent out during that year, and the French Bible
Society wrote piteous entreaties for a speedy payment of the
amount promised. In consequence of the assurance of this
aid from America, it had incurred obligations, and found it
self in serious difficulty ; $3,500 were sent in response to
this appeal but a sort of paralysis seemed to have smitten the
sources of revenue. As is often the case, many who might
have given, assumed that others would certainly pay, for the
whole country sympathised with needy France. It was not
until the year 1851 that the whole of the promised amount
was remitted to the French Bible Society.

In 1849 the French Government curtained liberties which
had flourished after the establishment of the republic. De
partments of France in which the clergy had strong influence
were for a time entirely closed to Bible colporteurs. No
one \vas permitted to distribute the smallest printed leaf un
less authorised by the prefect of the Department, and the ob
taining of such authorisations became more and more diffi
cult. But in spite of these obstacles, authorisations in suf
ficient number were granted to enable the Bible missionary
in some places to continue his operations on a large scale.
In other Departments the authorities, recognising the peace-

i86i] SOCIETIES ACT TOGETHER 211

able character of the people employed in Bible distribution,
and perceiving good effects from their labour, relaxed their
rigour in the matter of granting the authorisations. Fur
thermore, Rev. Dr. Monod reported, general interest in cir
culation of the IJible was seen to increase in proportion to
the bitterness of the opposition to it. Many people who in
calmer times would have cared little for the Bible now
sought it with eagerness ; and many booksellers who would
never have kept the Bible in stock at other times were com
pelled by the reading public to give the Scriptures a certain
importance in their trade.

The Society has had by repeated grants to the French So
ciety an important share in the development of the Prot
estant movement in France, it should be remembered, how
ever, that the British and Foreign Bible Society had then,
as now, an able Agent in Paris, and from time to time made
grants of money and books to the Protestant Bible Society
of Paris as well as to the French and Foreign Bible So
ciety. Thus the British and the American Societies have
touched shoulders in aiding evangelicals to cultivate the
moral and spiritual sense of the brilliant and attractive
French people. During the twenty-eight years from 1833
to 1 86 1 the grants of the American Society as aid to Bible
work in France amounted in all to something more than
$40,000.

Disturbances in Austria and Germany during 1848 very
much restricted the operations of the German Bible So
cieties. After the overthrow of the revolutionists in Hun
gary and in Austria, an agreement was made between the
Emperor Francis Joseph and the Pope by which all religious
instruction, and, in fact, all education throughout the Aus
trian Empire was surrendered to the Roman Catholic clergy,
controlled by bishops in the appointment of whom the Aus
trian government had no voice. This " Concordat," as it
was called, became an effectual barrier for many years
against general Bible circulation on the Austrian domains.

In Germany, Baptist and later Methodist missionaries, sup
ported from America, finding multitudes of people without
the Bible, applied to the Society and received aid in books
and especially in money for printing in German. Up to the

212 TURBULENT EUROPE [1841-

year 1861 the money grants of the Society for printing
Scriptures in Germany amounted to $33,000. The Rev. J.
G. Oncken of the Baptist Publishing House in Hamburg,
applying for help in 1856, gave some idea of the extent of
his work. He then reported that since the year 1829 he
had put into circulation 600,694 volumes. These grants for
printing Scriptures supplemented the efforts of the German
Bible Societies, which, being commonly quite local in char
acter, left considerable stretches of country without system
atic Bible supply.

The American Society had at various times granted Scrip
tures for distribution in Italy. In 1849 the Rev. G. Hast
ings, American Seamen's Chaplain at Marseilles, was al
lowed to go on a United States ship-of-war to Sicily. He
took with him all the Italian Bibles he had and got a further
stock from the British and Foreign Bible Society and sold
700 volumes in Sicily, besides receiving commissions for
2,100 volumes more. The avidity with which the Sicilians
seized the Bible at that time suggests a hunger for the Word
of God often found among the most unlikely people.

In Italy the chief supply of Scriptures came through the
British and Foreign Bible Society. In the few months of
the Republic of 1849 niore Scriptures \vere circulated in Italy
than in six hundred years before. Four thousand New Tes
taments were even printed in Rome, for the first time in his
tory. But after the return of the Pope the most stringent
measures were adopted in central Italy against the Bible
and all religious books not authorised by the Roman Church.
Men of first rate education and high standing in society felt
obliged to deposit their Bibles, obtained during the republic,
with English residents, saying that they could not feel safe
with the Book in the house. These people were not cow
ardly, but they had no armour that could repel the fierce
attacks of the inquisition. Count Guicciardini of Florence
had been known as a Protestant for three or four years, but
on the return of the Grand Duke of Tuscany from exile, the
Count was arrested. Six other Protestants of Florence
were also arrested and condemned to exile in the Marremma,
the most unhealthy marsh-land that the Tuscan government
could find. Happily, the influence of Guicciardini was suf-

1861] BIBLES FOR ITALY AND RUSSIA 213

ficient to save them from going to the marshes when they
promised to leave Tuscan territory. But in exterminating
the Bible by force the priests commended it to the people.
Arbitrary proceedings have a wonderful tendency to open
men's eyes.

When a Protestant Committee was organised for Bible
distribution in Northern Italy, it received aid from the
American Bible Society. Between 1855 and 1861 grants of
money to the Italian Committee at Florence amounted to
$9,700, and the plates of the Italian Bible made at that time
served for years in furnishing Scriptures for use in Italy.
It was almost ten years after the restoration of the Pope
to the Vatican that freedom dawned for any considerable
section of the Italian people. With the expulsion of the
Austrians from Lombardy and Venice in the summer of
1859, a new era of religious liberty began.

During this period the Society was also aiding Bible
work in North Russia. Mr. William Ropes, an American
merchant living in St. Petersburg, brought to the notice of
Secretary Brigham the desperate condition of the Protestant
Esthonians in the Baltic regions, and also an extraordinary
dearth of Scriptures in Finland where Protestant Chris
tians searched in vain for Bibles. The British and Foreign
Bible Society had made some grants during several years to
a Bible Committee in connection with the Anglo-American
Congregation in St. Petersburg, whose place of worship, by
the way, received its Government license as the Chapel of
the American Legation on request of James Buchanan, then
United States minister. After Pastor Knill, pastor of this
body, died, he was succeeded by the Rev. John C. Brown and
application was at once made to America for money to sup
ply the destitute Protestants. This was the beginning of
an important work of the Society of which we shall hear
later. During the twenty-seven years from 1834 to 1861
money sent to the St. Petersburg Committee (composed of
Messrs. Ropes, Gillibrand, and Miricles) amounted to
$18,800. Mr. Brown wrrote to Dr. Brigham that he had a
list of Lutheran clergymen in the Esthonians who would en
courage every attempt to benefit their parishioners by Bible
distribution. A young theological student of his acquaint-

214 TURBULENT EUROPE [1841-

ance would be exactly the man to supply every family with a
copy of the New Testament at a low price or gratuitously.
This done the young man would supply the parishes of
Lutheran clergymen who were unlikely to co-operate ener
getically in the work, and when those were supplied he
would go into parishes where the ministers were so rational
istic as to oppose Bible circulation. Beyond that he hoped
to do something for Livonia and Finland.

Mr. Brown's plan was attractive, although exacting.
Ideas come lightly into the mind, whence we know not, which
may prove solvents of difficulties or bearers of fruit to an un
heard of degree. Then it becomes evident that the same
idea occurred to many. As we say of the wind, concerning
which, after millenniums of study none can tell whence it
comes or whither it goes, we can only say in this case that
we receive the impression ; its source transcends our appre
hension. Of this class of ideas was the plan of helping
European Protestants. The Society felt it a duty to give
aid to Bible lovers crippled by anarchy or stifled by tyranny ;
and lo, the thought was seized with eagerness in all direc
tions. It was one of those God-given ideas that everybody
knew to be in his mind before it found expression. " Of
course it is our duty ! "

The influence of such a campaign widens like the circle
where a pebble has fallen into a still pool. Men who have
been moved by the old Bible make it live in a new soil, with
new applications and perhaps new interpretations. And so
the sum of the work accomplished tells upon generations to
come. It is worth while to have done such a work. In
every undertaking of this class God's truth becomes spread
in many directions like the beams from a lighthouse guiding
ships which approach from north or south or east.

Rev. Dr. F. Monod, a Secretary of the French and For
eign Bible Society, reported early in 1850 that up to the end
of 1849 the aid of the American Society had permitted the
printing of 102,000 volumes, besides making new plates for
an octavo and a duodecimo Bible in French; plates for the
New Testament, with the Psalms in each of these sizes, and
a set of plates for the four Gospels and the Acts bound to
gether. Of the books printed, 62,625 volumes had been put

i86i] THE BIBLE AMONG THE MASSES 215

in circulation (luring the year. The colporteurs of the
French Society reported that this Bible distribution was
warmly welcomed. Again and again village people who re
ceived the Scriptures afterwards said, " I read that book
constantly ; the religion of the Bible shall be my religion
henceforth forever." The colporteurs also reached a multi
tude of political prisoners held in durance, and their Testa
ments rejoiced both prisoners and guards.

In any upheaval of society not the richer class, but the
great mass of the poor is the decisive factor. In the work
of the Society in Europe the rich and highly educated were
not neglected, but it was among the masses, the despised
common people, that the influence of the Bible was most
strongly felt. It was among them that the numbers of
Scriptures scattered abroad could be seen to have influence
because these books, read in private, attack the habit of evil
thought and act in its lair. Single sentences out of thou
sands found in the Bible tend to fix in mind attractive ideals
like the words of the Psalmist: "I will set no base thing
before my eyes." In the long run the circulation of the
Bible slowly but surely modifies national character. What
these ignorant and oppressed peoples have always needed
and still need is instruction in free manliness and its pre
cious worth. That instruction they can find compressed
into the pages of the Bible. The Society could not work
out the rebuilding of these broken nations, but using every
opportunity to give them the Book, it has helped them to
learn how they could do it themselves.

The appeal to the Board from distressed Europe led
President Frelinghuysen to say in his address at the Annual
Meeting of 1850, " The Word is ordained in its course among
the nations to bring the whole family of man into one
blessed brotherhood, bound to God and to each other by the
ties of love." Obedience to the command of Jesus Christ
respecting the instruction of all nations is justified by all
the experiences of the Society. The faith and foresight of
the members of the Board and its executive officers has al
ways tended to the extension of beneficent influences. One
generation profits from the struggles, the faith, and the prog
ress of those who are gone, but its profit is a sacred trust re-

216 TURBULENT EUROPE [1841-

ceived for the betterment of many other generations to
come. So it was meet that children of Europe who brought
the Bible with them across the ocean to the new world, and
there proved its power to make life fruitful, should hasten,
when they saw European nations suffering through igno
rance of Bible teaching, to carry back, for the good of their
old fatherland, the great Book of Life.

CHAPTER XXVII

AMONG THE FOREIGN AGENCIES IN LATIN AMERICA

NEIGHBOURLY feeling is a most natural and praiseworthy
emotion. The Orientals say : " When you buy a house
don't look at the house, look at the neighbours ! " In regard
to Latin America it was perfectly natural that the Society
and its supporters throughout the United States should have
a most kindly regard for the welfare of these neighbours
who spoke only Spanish or Portuguese, and yet one of the
great problems of the Society was howT to reach them.
There was a barrier like a steel wall separating Anglo-Saxon
America and Latin America. The cause of this separation
was not distance, not difference of race and language, not
even lack of roads ; it was a total difference of atmosphere.
The Latin American countries had only slowly commenced
to emerge from a cloud of ignorance and superstition. The
very governments of the different republics were unstable,
replaced in some regions by anarchy ; and a considerable
plausibility attaches to the theory that this was largely due
to the church which, finding its material interests attacked
when the different colonies revolted from Spain, steadily
struggled against the progress of the masses toward political
liberty.

The Society cherished no enmity against the Roman
Catholic Church. By experience, however, the Board was
obliged to regard it as a partly political organisation en
dowed with the ideals of militarism while armoured with
the sanctities of religion. It seemed to have for its object
in Latin America the absolute control of mind as well as of
soul in its adherents in order that the church might be built
up. The people were in a state of bondage. The outward
forms of religion were strictly and pompously performed,
but there was little inward searching out of defects in

217

2i8 IX LATIN AMERICA [1841-

motivc or conduct. Any crime might be committed by a
member of the church and within an hour be fully forgiven
at the word of the priest. To the masses of the people re
ligion had for its chief function deliverance of the individual
from hell. This was deemed impossible unless each indi
vidual held aloof from intercourse with heretics as though
they were infected with leprosy.

( )n the other hand warm-hearted Protestant Christians
of the United States felt responsibility for the betterment
of all within their reach, since it is God's will that his people
should be efficient instruments for the uplift of the race. In
the eyes of the Protestants of the United States it was clear
that God's revelation of the rules of the universe had not
reached the people of Latin America. Those people were
suffering for lack of knowledge of the elements of pros
perity and peace. The impelling principle which led the
Hoard continuously to strive to circulate Scriptures among
these people was that expressed in the old proverb, " Go
slowly to the banquets of a neighbour, but haste to his afflic
tions."

During the first forty years of the Society's activity, its
plans for supplying Scriptures to accessible places in Latin
America was what the French might call " opportunist."
When any person from those lands of Spain's might and
Portugal's adventure appeared in Xe\v York, or wrote from
any island, district, or commercial mart promising to circu
late Scriptures in languages of the Latins, the Board was
ready to respond. In this casual and uncertain way during
the twenty years of the period from 1841 to 1861, 42,000
volumes of Scripture wrere distributed through local friends
of the Bible, not connected with the Bible Society, with much
travail of soul and in many places, from the West Indies
and Mexico to the southernmost tip of Patagonia.

As missionaries of different denominations were sent out
to the Latin Islands of the West Indies, the Board took
pains to supply every call for Scriptures. These calls came
sometimes from missionaries, sometimes from the chaplains
of the Seamen's Friend Society, sometimes from merchants,
sometimes from United States Consular officials, and they
reached San Domingo, St. Thomas, Porto Rico, Cuba and

i86i] MR. PIERSON AGENT IN HAYTT 219

Hayti. The Island of Hayti attracted special attention
through the religious liberty said to obtain there, and serious
efforts were put forth by missionary Societies and the Bible
Society in that domain of French speaking coloured people.
Religious liberty in Hayti, however, proved to be more or
less of an ignis fatnits, for it alternately appeared and dis
appeared whenever the officials of government became care
less of the priests, or on the other hand saw reasons for pros
trating themselves before those intelligent white men of
strong will.

In 1850 the Rev. Mr. Pierson was sent to Hayti as an
Agent of the Society. He found a field hungry for the
Bible and was cheered by the numbers who rejoiced to read
it. Mr. Pierson found that there was more freedom, more
education, and more open detestation of unworthy priests
than he had expected. He found missionaries in different
parts of the country, and he urged the Society to increase its
force because expenses were so small. The Haytian dollar
was only one-fourteenth part of an American dollar and
yet had about the same purchasing power as the dollar at
home. He soon found himself in difficulties, however, for
Father Cessen, a leading Roman Catholic priest, a native of
Corsica who had travelled much and had lived in the United
States for several years, began a campaign of sermons
against Mr. Pierson and the work of the Bible Society.
General La Rochelle, a leading member of the Haytian Gov
ernment and a Roman Catholic, had welcomed Mr. Pierson
because of the great need of moral training among the peo
ple. But Father Cessen warned the people that Mr. Pierson
and the missionaries were really political agents of the
United States Government, that they were paid from the
Government ten dollars a head for every convert, and fifty
dollars for every child born to these converts, and thus they
were expected to overthrow the Haytian Empire. Father
Cessen won the Empress to his opinion of the dangerous
influence of the Protestants, and shortly the government
went to the extent of forcing into the army all young men
whom they found in possession of the Scriptures. Agent
Pierson had little opportunity for Bible distribution after
this fierce outbreak, and much disappointed, he withdrew..

220 IX LATIN AMERICA [1841

Mexico was the nearest neighbour to the United States
among the Spanish republics. Its needs excited warm sym
pathy ; but a certain stubborn prejudice repelled every ex
pression of sympathy. The people of Mexico were patriotic
and because of their patriotism were quite ready to use their
knives upon those whom they considered enemies of the
country. At the same time one could not consider the na
tion as happy. It was composed of an aristocracy, mainly
Spanish, ruling with a rod of iron a labouring class chiefly
Indian ; and this proud, Spanish, aristocratic rule persisted
with but little basis of intellectual primacy. The country
was almost constantly in political upheaval, like the lake of
lava lying at the bottom of a crater, boiling, belching noxious
gases, and sometimes bursting forth to destroy itself as well
as the surrounding regions. The country was in so dis
turbed a state even as late as the French invasion in 1862,
that a resident Bible Agent from the United States could
hardly escape violence.

During the occupation by United States troops, Rev. Mr.
Xorris, the Agent of the Society, placed Scriptures in
some hundreds of families in Vera Cruz, Jalapa, Puebla, and
Mexico City. But he left with the Army in 1849. The
Rev. B. P. Thompson was appointed Agent in 1859 to dis
tribute Scriptures among the Spanish speaking people along
the Rio Grande. Miss Melinda Rankin, a missionary living
at Brownsville, Texas, also distributed Scriptures faithfully
among the Mexicans within her reach. Mexicans from the
interior often wished Scriptures but roving bandits often
made it impossible to reach such applicants and impeded
Bible work even on the border line.

In Central America the Rev. D. H. Wheeler, Seamen's
Friend Society Chaplain at Aspinwall, had been cordially
helpful to the Society during more than two years in dis
tributing Scriptures on the Isthmus of Panama, along the
line of the Panama railroad, and he had placed books also
in the hotels at Aspinwall, Gatun, and Chagres. In July,
1856, he was commissioned as Agent of the American Bible
Society for Central America, and sent to Nicaragua, where
there seemed to be an opportunity for Bible distribution.
" General " William Walker, with his filibusters, had sue-

i86i] MURDER OF REV. D. II. WHEELER 221

ceeded in getting possession of a part of the country, and in
this region Mr. Wheeler was expected to work. In October,
foreseeing, perhaps, but not afraid, Mr. Wheeler wrote that
the Nicaraguans seemed determined to drive out Walker and
his government and to exterminate all Americans residing in
Nicaragua, lie remained, however, in Granada. While a
battle was proceeding a few miles away between Walker
and the Nicaraguan troops, some Nicaraguan cavalry made
a raid upon the city. They ordered every man capable of
bearing arms to go out and join the Xicaraguan troops.
Mr. Wheeler and two other Americans who occupied the
same house refused, on the ground that they were Ameri
cans and neutrals, to take part in the battle. The cavalry
men immediately seized the three men, took them out of the
city and shot them. It was a terrible end of an agency most
hopefully undertaken. Mr. Wheeler was a delightful man
and a devoted Christian, always ready to sacrifice personal
interests for the sake of winning men to Jesus Christ. A
few weeks later Walker burned the city of Granada. This,
of course, made it impossible for the Society at once to send
another Agent to Nicaragua.

In 1854 Rev. Ramon Montsalvatge was appointed Agent
of the Society for Spanish South America with instructions
to begin work in Venezuela and go on to New Granada, a re
public nearly corresponding with Colombia of to-day. Mr.
Montsalvatge was a Spaniard, a Roman Catholic by birth,
and a truly converted man. He landed at La Guayra,
Venezuela, where he distributed in a very short time a thou
sand volumes of Scripture mainly by sale, but before long he
found that some of the priests did not think well of him. A
priest in La Guayra bought a Bible and a Testament of him
and expressed interest in his work, saying that the Ameri
can Bible Society was doing the town a great benefit by
sending the Scriptures in Spanish there. A day or two later
the bishop, accompanied by two of his clergy, called on Mr.
Montsalvatge, and upbraided him for selling Protestant
Bibles. He went off, leaving a canon to labour with the
" renegade." This labour took the form of offering Mr.
Montsalvatge a round sum of money for ten boxes of Bibles
which were in the custom house and which would be put

222 IX LATIN AMERICA [1841

where they would do no harm. Mr. Montsalvatge declined
to sell Bibles for this purpose, whereupon the canon went off
raging noisily. Mr. Montsalvatge also visited Caracas and
some other places with considerable success in Bible distri
bution, finally establishing himself at Cartagena until di
rected from New York to go to Bogota. He chose the route
which follows the Magclalena River, but before long an
nounced that the steamer in which he was ascending the
river with his family had been destroyed by an explosion
and he had to return to Cartagena. I Le then began to preach
to a small congregation of Protestants and was very kindly
regarded by this congregation ; but he gradually gave up
work for the American Bible Society after the arrival of
Mr. Duffield, the Agent of the British and Foreign Bible
Society.

Chile, pointed out in 1825 by Dr. (then Mr.) Brigham as
a notable centre for Bible distribution, and occupied in 1833
by Mr. Wheelwright, the first Agent sent abroad by the
Board, began to attract attention again a score of years
later. The Rev. I). Trumbull, a young" minister sent in 1846
by the American and Foreign Christian Union and the Sea
men's Friend Society of New York, to work for foreigners
and seaman at Valparaiso, was from the first a regular cor
respondent of the Society, receiving considerable quantities
of Bibles in Spanish and in other languages for circulation
by his own hand and by a colporteur locally supported. Mr.
Trumbull believed in selling the Scriptures whenever pos
sible and yet his labours aroused sincere and enduring inter
est among the people. His name became known along the
whole coast and orders for Scriptures came to him from
many distant places.

Another attempt to open systematic Bible distribution in
Spanish South America was made by the Board in 1857,
when the Rev. V. D. Collins, a missionary of the American
and Foreign Christian Union in Brazil, was appointed Agent
of the Society for Spanish South America. Mr. Collins was
acquainted with the Spanish as well as the Portuguese lan
guage, and he was instructed to begin his work at Buenos
Aires and then to cross the river into Paraguay and visit
Uruguay and such other republics as he found it convenient

i86i] MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA 223

to reach. Mr. Collins arrived at Buenos Aires in October,
1857. Me laboured earnestly and persistently and put in
circulation in different parts of the South American con
tinent a considerable number of Scriptures. From Uruguay
he went across the great plains and crossed the Andes into
Chile. Encountering somewhat strenuous opposition and
finding little encouragement on the Pacific coast, Mr. Collins
resigned his commission in 1859 and went as a missionary to
China.

By this time the American missionary societies had begun
to send men into different parts of South America. The
Bible Society was thus enabled to proceed more confidently
as it responded to requests from missionaries, sending Scrip
tures to Rev. II. B. Pratt at Bogota, Colombia, to Rev. Dr.
E. D. Care\v at Buenos Aires, to Rev. F. Crowe at ( luate-
mala, and others. It also came into relations with the
Moravians in Guiana for whom it published a version in
Arawack of the Book of Acts, the trans'^vjion having been
made by the Rev. Otto Tank.

Rio Janeiro must always bring to mind the disastrous re
sult of the attempt of French Huguenots in 1555, to establish
a colony of refuge at this point. The leader of the expedi
tion was a man of some distinction in the French Xaval
service, named Villegagnon. The colonists went to Brazil
because, as one writer remarks, there was every reason to
hope that the Reformation would take root there and fill the
South as well as the North with Protestant people. But
upon the arrival of a large force of Portuguese with orders
to seize the country, Villegagnon suddenly threw off a mask,
commenced to persecute the Protestants, and the result was
that the little colony disappeared. Some returned to France
after suffering terrible hardships, some were freed from the
treacherous enemy by death, others apostatised in order to
escape implacable and cruel hatred. The French court was
too busy destroying Huguenots in France to think of those
in Brazil, and those fellow believers at home who should
have supported the colony beyond the ocean were fully occu
pied by an untiring enemy which threatened everything dear
to them. So the whole country became Portuguese and
Roman Catholic.

224 IX LATIN AMERICA [1841-

Methodist missionaries to care for seamen went to Brazil
about 1836, and both Rev. Mr. Spalding, and Rev. D. P.
Kidder, who later joined Air. Spalding, gave much time to
circulating the Scriptures in Portuguese furnished them
from New York. Mr. Kidder travelled extensively in the
interior and wherever he went he carried the Bible with him.
The priests opposed this work, but their unreasonable and
fanatical obstruction stimulated curiosity in their followers,
and sales increased. The books sent out from Rio Janeiro
were not by any means without result. Mr. Kidder re
marks : " While subsequently travelling in distant prov
inces I found that the sacred volumes put in circulation at
Rio Janeiro had sometimes arrived before me, and wher
ever they went an interest had been awakened which led the
people to seek for more."

The first organised agency in Brazil wras established in
1854, when the Rev. J. G. Fletcher, an English gentleman
long resident in that country, was appointed agent of the
Society. He distributed many Bibles in the interior prov
inces, but in 1856, on account of illness in his family, he re
signed and returned to England. Mr. R. Nesbit, who had
already done good service for the Society in the valley of
the Amazon, \vas appointed Agent at Para in July, 1857.
After about one year's earnest and successful service, while
on a journey up the Amazon River, Mr. Nesbit contracted
a fever and died.

By this time the American missionary societies were be
ginning to send missionaries into Brazil. The Rev. Mr.
Holden of the Protestant Episcopal Missionary Society,
sent to Para, received Scriptures from the Bible Society to
distribute in connection with his work. The Rev. Messrs.
Simonton and Blackford, missionaries of the Presbyterian
Board established at Rio Janeiro, for several years acted as
agents of the Society, distributing the books over large ex
panses of country and everywhere finding friends glad to
receive the Scriptures in their own Portuguese language.

The British and Foreign Bible Society had ceased sys
tematic labours in South America for a decade or more. In
July, 1856, however, the reports of Mr. Fletcher, the Ameri
can Bible Society Agent, made its Committee the more eager

1861] TOUCHES INDIVIDUALS 225

to attempt something- again in what the Seeretary, Dr.
Bergne, regarded as " a field of immense extent which both
Societies can but imperfectly occupy." Dr. Bergne there
fore informed Secretary Brigham that two Agents had been
appointed to take up work in South America, one at Carta
gena, Colombia, and one at Rio Janeiro. lie expressed the
hope that the American Society would hail the British
Agents as fellow labourers instructed to maintain the most
friendly intercourse with its Agents, and to engage " in such
plans of joint operations as may be practicable." This was
the beginning of organised labour in South America on the
part of the British and Foreign Bible Society.

From all this work of the Society in South America, one
may learn the nature of the Bible distribution. Its nature
is to reach more and more individuals, and the truths which
even the most unlearned can acquire from Bible reading
make interest in the Bible spread as the light of dawn
spreads over a dark valley. A fruit of the work of a Bible
Society which appeals to all classes of the people is discovery
of the value of the Bible as an instructor in liberty; for the
Book teaches men how to escape the bondage of their own
evil habits and furthermore how to claim their rights if they
are held in bondage by others more powerful than them
selves. In this way the Bible among the masses of the
people slowly modifies national character. Missionaries
going into South America found in repeated instances that
the Scriptures sent out by the Society had prepared their
way ; and the missionaries, vigorously taking hold of the
work of Bible distribution, in turn prepared a way, as the
work grew, for the appointment of permanent Agencies of
the Society in different parts of the neighbour continent and
its islands.

CHAPTER XXVIII

AMONG THE FOREIGN AGENCIES THE LEVANT

ENVIRONMENT and atmosphere have a large place in the
difficulties of Bible distribution, as we have seen in Latin
America. The control of men's minds and conduct in the
Mohammedan system which prevailed throughout the Levant
Agency at the beginning of the nineteenth century was re
markably like the Roman Catholic control of thought and
action at the same period in Latin America. The Mo
hammedan religious body, like the political Christian church
of the Middle Ages, stood for militarism armoured with all
the sanctities of religion. Mohammedanism has a form of
godliness ; it insists on reverent worship of the one true God.
Its weakness lies in teaching men the habit of carefully per
forming outward forms of religion without insisting on the
inward moral allegiance that is an essential of belief that
God is. Any crime, excepting blasphemy, committed by a
devoted Mohammedan, as soon as committed is forgiven by
the merciful God. Social intimacy with Christians was in
1820 and to some extent still is, to a Mohammedan, con
tamination to be avoided with vigilance. The aim of the
religious hierarchy in Mohammedan society was absolute
control of mind and soul. The people lived in bondage,
for the Sultan as vicegerent of God always had a " Thus
saith the Lord " with which to check tendencies toward indi
vidual liberty of judgment.

Among a people manacled in this way the Bible So
ciety could have small opportunity, were it not that the
Oriental Christians subject to the Mohammedan govern
ment and scattered throughout its domains were tolerated,
allowed to maintain their own worship and their own social
customs. Nevertheless these Christians also at the begin
ning of the nineteenth century lived in bonds of ignorance
and superstition.

226

1861] AMERICAN MISSIONS IN TURKEY 227

American missions in Turkey were commenced in 1820
by the Rev. Pliny Fisk and Rev. Levi Parsons of the Ameri
can Board, who made a beginning of mission work at
Smyrna, at Beirut, and at Jerusalem. A complete printing
outfit was sent from Boston to the mission, being first estab
lished on the island of Malta beyond the reach of Turkish
officials. There the printing of Scriptures and tracts in the
languages of the Levant was quickly commenced.

Among the Armenians of the Levant there was a strange
readiness to receive the Bible not found among Greeks or
Jews, and of course not among Mohammedans. This
brought the missionaries into close relations with them at the
outset. It will be remembered, as was intimated in the nine
teenth chapter, that about 1815 the Russian Bible Society
published the Bible in Ancient Armenian, and in 1822, for
those who could not understand the ancient language, an
edition of the New Testament in Armeno-Turkish, and the
next year the British and Foreign Bible Society published
a version of the Testament in modern or colloquial Ar
menian. These Testaments were widely circulated, al
though both had defects in style and sometimes in rendering.
Later some publications of the American Mission Press at
Malta found their way to Constantinople and stimulated
questioning as to the need of reform in the Armenian
Church.

During the first fifteen years of the American Mission,
forty-one choice missionaries, men and women, were sent
by the American Board into regions to which the Bible So
ciety in 1836 sent Rev. Mr. Calhoun as Agent. Fifty-four
new missionaries were sent out during the eight years of his
agency, but of these ninety-five missionaries, thirty-eight
in the meantime had been taken from the field by failure of
health or by death. At the close of the forty-one years end
ing with this period of our history (1861) 251 missionaries
(including wives of missionaries) had been sent by the
American Board to this great field. But the stress of forty
years' labour had reduced the whole number by 125 in
valided home or removed by death. This missionary host
was established in twenty-five widely separated strategic
points in Turkey, Greece, Syria, and Western Persia.

228 THE LEVANT [1841-

Every missionary station in this broad area was a centre of
Bible distribution which looked to the American Bible So
ciety for books. The duties of the Society's Agent were
not by any means trivial in such a field.

In the Levant were many sincere souls whose gropings for
truth stirred sympathy. Bibles distributed by the first
American missionaries deeply influenced such persons. In
1832, Mr. Goodell visited Nicomedia, the former capital of
Bythinia, and the occasional residence of Diocletian the
Cruel, of Constantine the Great, and other Roman Emperors.
Here Mr. Goodell left with an old priest a copy of his
Arnieno-Turkish New Testament, lie gave to some
Armenian boys in the street some tracts in the Armenian
language, one of which fell into the hands of another priest.
These two priests were soon saying to themselves and to
each other, " If this is religion, we have none ! " Six years
later, Mr. H. G. O. Dwight found in Nicomedia sixteen
Armenian followers of the Bible who had never seen a mis
sionary, who appeared to be truly converted men, and who
afterwards became the nucleus of a flourishing evangelical
church.

One of the tracts issued in Armeno-Turkish from the mis
sion press at Malta fell into the hands of an Armenian pil
grim at Jerusalem in 1826, and was taken home to Marsovan
in Asia Minor. The tract introduced the pilgrim to the
New Testament and the New Testament showed him Jesus
Christ. That tract sent out at a venture by the earliest mis
sionaries of the American Board was the first messenger of
the Gospel in a place which since 1852 has been a noble
station of the American Missionaries and a centre for the
widest distribution of the Bible. Such works were the
Lord's doings !

One of the graduates of Peshtimaljian's Armenian school
in Constantinople, named Der Kevork, particularly inter
ested the missionaries Goodell and Dwight, who attended his
ordination at the Armenian Patriarchate in 1833. This
young priest's after history illustrated the preparation among
the Armenians in those days for study of the Bible. He
\vas assigned to the parish of Haskeuy, Constantinople, and
for long years he kept up friendly relations with the mis-

1861] MISSIONARY WORK A BIBLE WORK 229

sionaries and, as the priest of that parish, he taught his
people to study the Scriptures, and shape their conduct by
the divine light. About half a century after this ordina
tion a missionary called upon Der Kevork, who was still
priest of the Armenian Church in Haskeuy. The old man,
dressed in white, was bolstered up with pillows. His long
beard was white as snow and his thin hands and kindly face
were white and bloodless, for he was soon to pass from
earth to the presence of the Saviour whom he loved. On a
little stand at his bedside was the Armenian Bible of the
American Bible Society, and on a shelf nearby were com
mentaries, a Bible handbook, and other books in Armenian
printed by the American Mission. When the missionary
was leaving that saintly presence, the venerable priest took
his visitor's hand and, with warm emotion, said, " And so
you are the son of my dear friend, Dr. Dwight : God bless
you ! " And he kissed the missionary on both cheeks. That
affectionate benediction was a precious testimony to the
worth of the Bible brought to Der Kevork by the early mis
sionaries, to be a light to his path from his ordination to his
grave.

The relation of the Bible to the work of the missionaries
in the Levant was set forth by the Rev. William Goodell,
translator of the Bible into Armeno-Turkish. lie wrote to
Secretary Brigham in 1842: "Our whole work with the
Armenians is emphatically a Bible work. The Bible is our
only standard and the Bible our final appeal. Without the
Bible wre might say one thing and the priests and bishops
could say another, but where would be the umpire ? All our
efforts would be like beating the air. . . . And so we our
selves, with the Bible in our hands and in the hands of the
people, seem to be standing on the Rock of Ages and build
ing for eternity ; but without it we build on the sand and
our house is exposed to be blown down by every storm that
sweeps by. These remarks I thought it important to make
as an apology, should any be deemed necessary, for having
devoted some eight years of my life to this work of trans
lating the Word of God."

Mr. Calhoun threw his whole heart into his Agency.
Hardly more than a dozen years, before he went to Turkey

230 THE LEVANT [1841-

in 1836 he had been an unbeliever and a mocker at the Bible.
It seemed to him a great privilege now to help take the book
back to the lands whence it issued. His agency field in
cluded almost all the territories mentioned in Bible history
and it was, perhaps, the most attractive and promising of all
the fields then occupied by the American Board of Foreign
Missions.

Armenian Bible lovers in this field attracted the sympathy
of many Europeans as well as Americans, when in 1839 the
Armenian Church commenced a systematic persecution of
those who persisted in reading the Bible. The persecution
of these Evangelical Armenians continued until 1846 with
some intervals of relaxation. The Armenian patriarch at
Constantinople being allowed by the Turkish Government
to use the Turkish police to maintain ecclesiastical disci
pline, banished many men, who had become enlightened
through reading the .Bible, to distant parts of the country,
among them Mr. Calhoun's chief assistant in the Bible dis
tribution. The trade unions expelled those who refused to
give up the Bible, so that hundreds could get no employment.
Even the butchers and bakers were forbidden to sell food to
these unfortunate people. They were anathematised and ex
communicated by the Armenian Church and it was not until
1846 that the British Ambassador, at the instance of the
American Missionaries, obtained the interference of the
Turkish Government in behalf of men persecuted for con
science's sake. This was the origin, entirely unexpected and
unsought, of the Protestant Evangelical Community in the
Turkish Empire, and of this body Mr. Calhoun said in one
of his letters, " A truly religious, spiritual community, by
the grace of God, has been created in Constantinople which
would have done honour to the Church of Christ at any
period of its history."

Mr. Calhoun did not withhold aid from regions border
ing upon the Turkish field. Some hundreds of thousands
of Protestant German colonists were scattered through the
southern provinces of Russia and in Walachia and Mel-
davia, who were eager to have Bibles. At his request the
Board of Managers granted funds and sent German Bibles
for distribution among these people, who were in part di-

i86ij RESIGNATION OF AGENT CALHOUN 231

rectly reached, and partly through Mr. Melville of Odessa,
afterwards Agent of the British and Foreign Bible Society,
and through the Rev. Mr. Fielstedt of Bucharest, mission
ary of the Church Missionary Society. Protestants lived in
Hungary for whom under the Austrian laws the Bible could
not be imported. Air. Calhoun caused to be printed in
Vienna two thousand copies of the Testament and Psalms
in German for these poor people, books printed in Vienna
not being interfered with by the laws that checked impor
tation.

The Board of Managers \vas always sensitive about us
ing for salaries funds of the Society. Its hope was that
missionaries would be able to care for Bible work, so that
Agents would not be permanently needed in mission fields.
In 1842 it notified Mr. Calhoun that his appointment would
be continued for two years, but its renewal would then be
an open question. Mr. Calhoun had set his heart upon
labour for the people of Turkey and now he arranged to
become a missionary of the American Board. But he urged
the continuance of the Bible Society Agency. His reasons
were, first, that Bible work in the Levant was largely in the
hands of the American Bible Society. Second, all the mis
sionaries looked to the Society for a supply of Scriptures but
they were too busy with their own growing enterprise to
supervise Bible work and make out regular and accurate re
ports of distribution. Third, the field is the most important
that the Bible Society has or can have ; the people are ac
cessible and responsive, and it is an honor to carry the Bible
back to the ancient Bible lands.1 In 1844 ne resigned,
joining the mission in Syria, and the Board of Managers
decided not at once to appoint another Agent for the Le
vant. To the end of his long and fruitful life Mr. Cal
houn gladly co-operated with the Society in the distribu
tion of Scriptures among the mountains of Lebanon where
the impression of his faithful labours and his holy life per
sists to this day.

All this time Mr. Goodell was carrying on his transla
tion of the Bible into Armeno-Turkish. In the early months
of 1842 the Old Testament was finished, being printed at

1 Letter of S. H. Calhoun to Secretary Brig-ham, May 9, 1842.

232 THE LEVANT [1841-

the expense of the American Bible Society, and in January,
1843, Mr. Goodell wrote to Secretary Brigham that the
Armeno-Turkish Testament was also finished and was be
ing printed by the British Bible Society. He joyfully added :
" In the hands of the Armenians who use only Turkish is
now all the information that has ever come from Heaven
for their benefit."

During the eight years of Mr. Calhoun's Agency, 35,000
volumes of Scripture had been printed at the expense of
the Society chiefly at the .Mission Tress in Smyrna, 12,275
volumes had been supplied from the Bible House in New
York, and 28,436 volumes had been purchased of the Brit
ish and Foreign Bible Society for the use of the American
missionaries. The books sent out by the Agency were in
seventeen languages, from Syriac and Persian in the East,
to Albanian, German, Italian, French and English in the
West.

In 1853 began a quarrel of Russia with Turkey over the
question whether the Greek or the Roman Catholic Church
ought to have custody of the key of the Church of the
Nativity in Bethlehem. In the war to which this quarrel
led, the Western Powers of Europe became involved. This
concentrated attention in America as well as in Europe
upon the Turkish Empire and Constantinople which Russia
hoped to capture.

In the month of July, 1854, the Rev. Chester N. Righter,
who had lately returned from a tour through Syria and
Western Turkey, was appointed Agent in place of Mr. Cal-
houn. Mr. Righter wrote pleasantly of his reception at
Constantinople, and of the organisation of an Auxiliary
(to the British and Foreign Bible Society) in that city
which united British missionaries to the Jews and American
Missionaries to the general population in one body under
presidency of the Hon. Carrol Spence, the American Minis
ter. The stirring events of that time were emphasised during
the first annual meeting of this Auxiliary, held in the hall
of the principal hotel, when speakers were repeatedly inter
rupted by the thunder of guns from the English and French
fleets saluting the Sultan as ship after ship, in full view

i86i] RIGIITER DIES IX MESOPOTAMIA 233

from the windows, passed up the Phosphorus to attack the
Russian fortress of Sebastopol.

Air. Rightcr made a visit to the armies in the trenches
hefore Sebastopol, distributing Scriptures among the sol
diers, and in Constantinople he worked among soldiers as
well as among the people of the city. In fact, the Crimean
war brought facilities for Bible distribution such as had
never before been known in Turkey.

By this time the American Board had added to the num
ber of its stations, and Air. Righter wished to see for him
self the men sending to him for Scriptures. After visit
ing Greece and Egypt, in 1856 he set forth with an English
missionary Secretary on a long tour on horseback to the
stations occupied by adventurous missionaries of the Amer
ican Hoard in Eastern Turkey. He visited Tocat, Sivas,
Arabkir, and Diarbekir, and proceeded to Mosul by a raft
built in antediluvian style on inflated goat skins. Thence
he went to Alardin, where he was taken ill. His companion
brought him to Diarbekir with great difficulty. Every ef
fort of Dr. Nutting, the resident missionary physician,
failed to check the disease, and Air. Righter died at Diar
bekir in December, 1856.

The blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church. Mr.
Righter's body, lying in the Syrian cemetery at Diarbekir,
is a perpetual reminder to the evangelical congregation in
that city of the self-sacrifice which brought them the Bible,
and to the American Bible Society of its sacred duty to stand
by that distant missionary station. In this field every Tes
tament taken into a village or town lying beyond the mis
sionary centers, created a demand for many more. Thus
in these northern parts of Alesopotamia it was American
enterprise which as early as 1850 discovered the opportu
nity, took permanent residence among the squalid houses of
the people, and, mission and Bible Society always co-operat
ing, scattered the seed of an abundant harvest.

A co-labourer with the Bible Society, the Rev. Dr. Eli
Smith, translator of the New Testament into Arabic (the
version chiefly used in evangelising Diarbekir), finished his
earthly service in 1857. In 1848 Dr. Smith had been set

234 THE LEVANT [1841-

apart for Bible translation by the American Board, the Bible
Society providing the salary of his assistant. On receiving
intelligence of Dr. Smith's death, the Board of Managers
honoured his memory by formally assuming the duty of
supplying funds to complete the translation of the Bible
into Arabic as soon as an able man was found for the work.
This able man was another missionary of the American
Board, the Rev. C. V. A. Van Dyck, who taking up the
work of Dr. Smith revised it and" completed the transla
tion of the Bible in the most masterful manner.

An obvious necessity of the existence of a Bible Society
is that missions anywhere sustained by churches which help
to support the Society should receive aid for printing and
distributing Scriptures. The Rev. I. (i. Bliss, a former
missionary of the American Board at Erzerum in Eastern
Turkey, was selected for Air. Righter's post and arrived at
Constantinople in January, 1858.

Mr. Bliss had special qualifications for this position. He
knew the land, its languages, and its needs. Being ac
quainted with a large proportion of the great missionary
body he could sympathise with and help them as a stranger
could not. Having an energetic habit he would press Bible
distribution to the utmost. The time was propitious, for
diffusion of the Bible always creates demand for it. Or
ders were constantly coming from all parts of the Levant
for Scriptures. This demand came from all nationalities
and from people of every rank. In Constantinople the
Mussulman official of high standing could be seen reading
the Bible and discussing its contents with a despised Prot
estant peasant from the far off highlands of Ararat.

Until 1836 nearly all the Scriptures used by the American
missionaries in the Levant were obtained from the British
and Foreign Bible Society, the bills for their cost being
generally paid by the American Bible Society. This fact
raised a curious problem. These Scriptures were naturally
included by the British and Foreign Bible Society in its re
ports of issues. That Society rejoiced that it had supplied
the Scriptures which the American missionaries used in
beginning their remarkable campaign in Turkey. On the
other hand, the American Bible Society of course reported

1861] UNEXPECTED CALL EOR THE BIBLE 235

among its issues books for which it had paid and which it
sent to the missionary stations. Eor a time, therefore, the
figures of Bible circulation in Turkey suffered from a
double entry not observed perhaps by either Society. Such
an infelicity was less liable to occur after a permanent Agent
had the work of the American Society thoroughly in hand.1
One year after his arrival in Constantinople Mr. Bliss
wrote to Dr. . Brigham that during three months "more
copies of the Scriptures published by our Society have been
sent forth from the Depot in that city to different parts
of the Empire than during the whole of the last year." One
order was for 100 Bibles from Bythinia. A week or two
before this eight boxes of Bibles were sent to Harput,
reached by pack-mule caravan from a Black Sea port 300
miles east of Constantinople. The following week six large
cases of Scriptures were despatched by ox-cart to Philip-
popolis in .Bulgaria. An unexpected desire to read the
Bible seemed to have been awakened among the Christian
sects of Turkey and even among the Mohammedans. The
enthusiasm shown by Mr. Bliss in these early months of his
Agency continued fresh and undiminished during thirty
years.

1 The American Bible Society began in 182710 make remittances for
Scriptures to the missionaries of the American Board in the Levant,
and from that time to 1861 it had granted for printing or for pay
ment of the bills of the British and Foreign Bible Society for books
supplied to American missionaries $110,816; the books being in Ar
menian, Armeno-Turkish, Arabic, Syriac, Hebrew-Spanish, Greek
and some other languages.

CHAPTER XXIX

LIGHT FOR THE DARKER LANDS

GLORIOUSLY was the Nineteenth Century of church his
tory ushered in by the great missionary movement. This
movement both prepared a way for taking Bibles to almost
every part of the world, and produced Societies to furnish
the Bibles. The earliest American missions in purely pagan
lands were established in India. Even before any formal
decision to supply American missions abroad, the Society,
as already mentioned, began to send money to missions
which needed Scriptures as a foundation for their work.
To American missions on the continent of India and in the
island of Ceylon during its first twenty-five years the So
ciety granted more than $35,000 for Bibles.

The confidence of the Society in making these appropria
tions largely rested upon the qualities of American mis
sionaries. In India, for instance, the American Board had
established itself in different parts of the country, and later
other American missionary societies opened work in this
strange, and in many respects beautiful land. Beginning
with 1813 the American Board placed a missionary station
at Jaffna in Ceylon and at Bombay and as the places seemed
to invite occupancy, it also formed a station at Madras and
later one at Madura. It sent out printing presses and prin
ters to Jaffna and to Madras in order that the missionary
might reinforce the spoken word with printed arguments.

We talk about India as if it was a single country and its
people a single nation. We read that 300,000,000 people
inhabit that land. These numerals, however, convey little
impression, being no more interesting than the formula of a
problem in Algebra. When American missionaries went
into India, educated, refined, loving the good, hating the
evil, they found themselves in the midst of different races,
separated by language and by lines of caste as well as by

236

1841-1861] OPPRESSION OF THE MASSES 237

walls of religion, yet in several respects alike. The masses
of the people lived in darkest ignorance. They were un
able to read, their minds seemed utterly vacant ; a sort of
animal instinct held them to the ways of their fathers,
whether as to place of abode or its quality, whether as to
religious belief or its outward expression. No aspiration
for improvement brightened any life, and no curiosity was
aroused when improvements were offered by others. With
ten or more varieties of gross paganism to be studied and
mastered, in the very place where Satan's seat appeared to
be, a missionary in India had occasion, if ever man had,
to doubt the duty of including India within the Saviour's
command to teach all nations.

Possessed by the devil of egotism, the Brahmins, men of
the highest caste, educated for the most part, unceasingly
turned the ignorance of the masses to their own personal
gratification and gain. Power to oppress was their birth
right ; the corruption of the people was the surest defence
of their influence. Like the ancient Pharisees they would
not touch with their finger-tips the heavy burdens which
they laid upon the people. Their spirit appears in the cold
unfeeling attitude which they held at this time toward their
sacred Vedas. They restricted the use of these to members
of the Brahmin caste. Lower castes might not possess or
read the Yedas, nor even hear them read. The Pariahs,
people so low in the social scale as to be outside of any
caste, they regarded as not worthy to drink from the same
well as Brahmins, nor entitled to own any space upon earth.
Missionaries coming into the country, as though personally
attacked, deeply felt this oppression of the masses of the
people. The kind of sensitiveness toward injustice which
burns as fire until a remedy is found, is what God always
shows in His messages to men. A holy indignation fairly
drove the missionaries into efforts to help the poor and
ignorant and despised. Influence by which they could move
such degraded people does not spring from genius, but
from humble service in the name of Jesus Christ.

At the beginning of the second quarter century of the
work of the Bible Society these missionaries, hidden as it
were like leaven in a great mass of meal, had been labour-

238 LIGHT FOR THE DARKER LAXDS [1841-

ing for a score of years. In the mission schools some peo
ple had learned to read ; in limited circles the missionaries
were recognised as men of a new species. An American
missionary did not tell lies. He could not be convinced
of self-seeking, and he preached a religion which lived in
his heart. Such traits of character, utterly at variance with
those prominent in India, led the common people little by
little to take interest in what the missionary taught. Char
acter, so to speak, was the thin edge of a wedge that cleft
the apathy of the people toward mural principle, toward the
circumstances of daily life and toward everything save the
daily scraping together of food enough for the day.

With a heat like that felt by those who have discovered
families dying from starvation, the missionaries cried to
the Bible Society for help and the Board hastened grants
of money for Bibles. During the twenty years from 184 r
to 1 86 1 grants to the .American missions in India amounted
to nearly $120,000.

The greatest value of these grants of money was that the
missionaries were thereby enabled adequately to publish
translations of some importance. In Ceylon the Tamil
Version existed long before American missionaries acquired
the language, but the American Mission Press became for a
time a centre from which some English missions also re
ceived Scriptures in Tamil, since the Americans improved
the clearness and accuracy of the old translation. It seemed
wise to the English and American missionaries to work to
gether in this, and the Jaffna Bible Society, Auxiliary to
the British and Foreign Bible Society, was organised. Be
fore long we find American missionaries suggesting to the
American Bible Society that grants of money for Ceylon
be made directly to the Jaffna Auxiliary instead of to the
American Board of Boston. The Managers granted the
request, and as a natural result, the fruit of the seed sow
ing by the Society was lost to sight in the reports of the
Jaffna Bible Society. This was simply another illustration
of a fact which has close relation to the spiritual growth of
every Christian worker ; namely, that God's way of advanc
ing His kingdom is to have one sow and another reap the
fruit of the sowing.

1841] MISSIONARIES HELPED 239

The revision of the Tamil Bible was afterwards trans
ferred to Madras, where the American Mission Press was
also occupied with work in Tamil, and where the advice
and co-operation of English missionaries was more readily
obtained. The Madras Auxiliary of the British and Eor-
eign Bible Society took general charge of the printing, but
in this case the rule was followed of dividing the editions
in proportion to the money furnished by the two great
Bible Societies. In 1845 the Rev. Mr. Winslow sent a
beautiful letter to the Board of Managers accompanying a
specimen of the first edition of the Bible in Tamil to be
brought within the compass of a single volume.

Some of the grants for India during this period \vere
made to the Rev. A. Sutton, an English Baptist missionary
in Orissa, who confessed to Secretary Brigham that four of
the missionaries in that field were English and only two
Americans. " But then," he added, " four of the wives of
missionaries are Americans and only two English. If I
myself have not the honour of being1 American, yet I feel
it difficult to admit that I am less interested in the pros
perity of your institution than a lineal descendant of the
Pilgrim Eathers." Naturally this frank and friendly
avowal secured for Mr. Sutton several grants of money
for Scriptures in the Uriye language.

In the north of India as American Presbyterian Missions
were established in the Lodiana District, money was fur
nished by the Society for translation, printing and distribu
tion in the Hindi and Urdu and later in the Punjabi lan
guage. The Methodist Episcopal mission at Lucknow re
ceived grants for Bible distribution almost as soon as it
had fairly taken up its work. And later on the printing of
Scriptures in Urdu at Lucknow was supported by funds
from the American Bible Society.

It was during this period that the Indian mutiny oc
curred. It was a terrible insurrection in North India last
ing more than a year from May, 1857, which was intended
to destroy the troops, establishments and other appurte
nances of the East India Company. From the missionary
point of view a part of the significance of this terrible mutiny
was the revelation which it made of trust in God and de-

240 LIGHT FOR THE DARKER LAXDS [1841-

voted bravery animating missionaries who stayed by their
posts. This gave them influence among some classes of
the people. The mutiny also resulted in the transfer of
the British civil and military organisations in India from
the East India Company to the British Government. Bible
distribution, evangelistic efforts, and education made steady
forward progress after this bloody episode of Indian his
tory.

Mention has already been made of the early work of
American missionaries upon the Marathi Version. Before
1850 the mission co-operated with the Bombay Auxiliary
of the British and Foreign Bible Society, using the funds
sent by the American Society to pay for printing Scriptures,
and also for purchasing Scriptures in other languages than
the Marathi which the missionaries used in their general
evangelistic work. Mr. Allen, one of the missionaries of
the Board in this field, mentioned a curious result of the
Bible work. By the activities of Bible Societies, Moham
medans seemed to have been stirred to print the Koran,
which had always before been written out by hand. They
even went further than this in printing favourite chapters
of the Koran separately in little booklets which, like those
from the Mission press, could be sold for a very low price.

Another early mission of the American Board was in
Siam, having been commenced by David Abeel in 1831 and
continued until about 1850 when the missionaries were
withdrawn. During the time of their stay at Bangkok
the missionaries set up a printing office, manufactured
Siamese type, and with money granted by the Society is
sued in Siamese the New Testament and some books of the
Old Testament. Rev. Charles Robinson, one of the mis
sionaries, wrote to the Board describing the work, and in
cidentally this letter illustrates what we have already men
tioned — the importance of early editions of a new version
as a foundation for permanent translation of the Bible.
Mr. Robinson says, " This mission has introduced in your
books the division of words in printing, as is done in other
languages. The Siamese generally acknowledge that this
makes the book much easier to read than those printed in
the Siamese method which runs words together." The

1861] AMERICAN VENTURES IN AFRICA 241

American missionaries, also, introduced marks of punctua
tion, being rather cautious about this however, for fear of
criticism ; but the Siamese seemed to be pleased after they
understood what was being done. " Hundreds and per
haps thousands," said Mr. Robinson, " in this kingdom have
read portions of the word of life. Although buried long
in dust, we trust the good seed will at length spring up."
When the American Presbyterian Church opened its per
manent mission in Siam, the hope of Air. Robinson came
true.

At the time of which we are writing, Africa was on the
maps chiefly as a picture of a guess. The ignorance of the
West concerning the interior of the great dark continent
was hardly more gross than that of the people who lived in
it concerning America. Excepting in the northern and
southern extremities of the continent, which had been
touched by civilisation, the very idea of writing had not
yet reached the minds of the people. They were without
an alphabet and of course without books. Among the va
rious missionary societies attempting to enter the continent
from the East and from the West, American societies had
commenced work on the West coast in Liberia, and farther
south near the mouth of the Gaboon River. Great Britain
occupied Port Natal on the southern part of the East coast
in 1842. The American Board sent missionaries into that
region about the same time and it was not many years be
fore the Bible Society was beset with requests for aid to
print the Scriptures in African languages.

Intellectual giants only could enter that dark continent,
discover means of talking with the people, acquire a vo
cabulary, decide upon an alphabet suitable for writing the
language, and within a decade or so begin cautious trans
lations of portions of Scripture. The old Romans did many
things by which the Christian world still profits. Their
alphabet has been the instrument of bringing intellectual
and spiritual life to many a black tribe left generation after
generation without the power of writing.

In 1847 the Society printed in New York the Gospel of
John in the Grebo language, translated by a missionary of
the American Episcopal Church in Liberia. In 1849 the

242 LIGHT FOR THE DARKER LANDS [1841-

missionaries of the American Board in southeastern Africa
announced that they had completed a translation of one of
the Gospels into the Zulu language, and the Society fur
nished them the means of printing it on their own press at
the mission headquarters. This was the beginning of a
great African version of which some 250,000 volumes have
been printed at the Bible House in New York. In 1852
one of the first works undertaken in the new Bible House
was the printing of the Gospel of John in the Mpongwe
language, spoken by tribes in the district of Gaboon, in
West Africa, Rev. Air. Bushnell, one of the missionaries
of the American Board, having supervised the proof-read
ing in order to insure accuracy. Tins work for darkest
Africa, as we shall see later, lias had the result of show
ing that the black men have the same difficulties and the
same yearnings for better things as do the white men who
often despise them.

In China the real beginning of advance in missionary
work was prepared by treaties at the end of the war with
England in 1842 commonly called the Opium War. Tem
porarily only, before that time, could missionaries find lodge
ment in Chinese cities. Singapore with its large Chinese
population was a famous mission station, and the Portuguese
island of Macao also had an important place in early mis
sions to China. But after losing Canton in the war with
England the Chinese government made peace and opened
to foreign commerce five important seaports. These ports
were quickly entered as mission stations. Incidentally the
cession of the island of Hong Kong to Great Britain gave
missions a secure base for operations in the Chinese Em
pire. After the second war with England new treaties gave
access to several additional cities, some of which were in
the interior of the country. China was open to the Gospel.

American missionaries in China received, from 1833 to
1836, $19,500 from the Society for printing revisions of Dr.
Morrison's Chinese version. In 1843 the missionaries of
several different denominations conferred in regard to
Scriptures for China. The conference was unanimous on
the necessity of promptly supplying missionaries with the
Bible in Chinese, the necessity of revising the existing text,

i86i] THE ;'TERM" QUESTION IN CHINA 243

and the impropriety of independent action by the missions,
which might produce several versions of the Chinese Scrip
tures. It was agreed, too, that missionaries of all denomi
nations should participate in the revision, a portion being
assigned to each station and afterwards passed around for
comments before being taken in hand by the delegates com
posing the general revision committee. Along with the
earnest desire for a union version, and a general agree
ment in principle, curiously enough this conference brought
to light difficulties of translation which proved unexpectedly
stubborn. Not only did the old question of rendering the
Creek word baptiz'o prove a stumbling block, but the selec
tion of terms to represent the Deity and the Holy Spirit
in Chinese encountered irreconcilable differences of opinion,
although Morrison's Bible, which used the term Shin for the
Supreme I icing, had been in use for twenty-five years.
The conference voted in both cases to leave those ques
tions for later settlement, in the meanwhile expecting the
different missions to Mil the blanks in the manuscript with
the term by each preferred.

Jn June, 1847, the Committee of Delegates having re
ceived suggestions made by the different stations began
its revision of the Chinese New Testament. Then began
also a series of discussions in Committee lasting through
three or four years concerning Chinese terms properly to
be adopted for the name of the Deity and of the Holy
Spirit. Some general principles of Bible translation also
became topics for warm discussion. Discussion ripened
into controversy; and quite a library of letters, pamphlets,
and other documents were interchanged between the differ
ent parties and submitted to the Bible Societies in London
and New York for their judgment, and sometimes even for
their guidance.

When the New Testament was ready to be printed in
1850, the Bible Societies not having been willing to make
a decree, as two hundred years earlier the Pope had done in
a parallel controversy among Roman Catholic missionaries,
the question of " terms " very definitely divided the Com
mittee of Delegates. In the meantime the Committee of
the British and Foreign Bible Society, in its eagerness

244 LIGHT FOR THE DARKER LANDS [1841-

quickly to supply Scriptures for China, had given to the
London Missionary Society $5,000 to enable it to send
a cylinder press to Shanghai, and had decided to furnish
any amount of money that was necessary promptly to bring
out a revised Chinese .Bible. It informed the American
Bible Society of its action and offered to let it participate
in the expense. The American Society, also feeling very
deeply the needs of China, appropriated $10,000 to 'be used
by the missionaries of the American Board in bringing out
the revised Chinese Bible whenever it should be ready. The
Xew Testament was printed, the places left blank for the
revisers, being filled by each party according to preference.

Throughout this controversy the letters from Dr. Bridg-
man, Dr. S. Wells Williams, and other American mission
aries to Secretary Brigham showed a yearning to put the
.Bible into the empty hands of the Chinese which was
pathetic. Again and again they begged for prayers in be
half of a speedy solution of the obstructive problems.
Nevertheless, in August, 1851, when the " Delegates Com
mittee " began to revise the Old Testament, it was almost
immediately disrupted by divergent opinions respecting es
sential principles of Bible translation, Dr. Medhurst and
Messrs. Stronach and Milne of the London Missionary So
ciety following their preference in the revision, and Dr.
Bridgman, Mr. Culbertson and Bishop Boone, American
missionaries, carrying on a revision according to the prin
ciples for which they had contended. Instead of a union
version, two versions of the Chinese Bible were therefore
issued, one more elegant in style and the other more ac
curate in rendering. Neither could be accepted by all the
missions. Perhaps because the Chinese themselves have
thought the Supreme Being too far above man to be men
tioned excepting by suggestion, the Chinese term to be
used where '' God " is named in the Bible is still unsettled.
The Bible Societies must hope that the Chinese Christian
church rather than missionary scholars will one day end
a controversy which has endured through two generations.

In all of this work of Bible translation and publication
while American missions were at their beginnings, the early
translation perhaps of a single Gospel with all its imperfec-

i86ij IMPORTANCE OF TRANSLATIONS 245

tions proved a work of permanent value when made by a
trite scholar. There may be much retracing of steps as the
translation is revised again and again, but the first serious
impression upon the new language is commonly found in
the earliest form of the version. Upon this foundation the
finished structure of a more accurate and less crude trans
lation is erected.

CHAPTER XXX

STORM CLOUDS

VEXATIOUS troubles, which the Apostle admits to be in
one sense grievous, he more than once assures his disciples
are matters for rejoicing. Patience, for instance, he
counts among things worth gaining, like gold dust from a
sand bank, out of carking cares and afflictions. He reminds
one that when a person has acquired patience in this way
he is a gainer also of the experience of various good things
that come to him who wails. Another of the Apostle's
postulates is that after gaining the experience of good in
the midst of trouble, a permanent condition of optimism is
apt to result — a hope which will not fail.

Notwithstanding the really remarkable successes which
had attended the efforts of the Society both at home and
abroad, the last few years of the period before the Civil
War brought to the Hoard of Managers a series of per
plexities which sometimes seemed to be harbingers of greater
evils to come. In 1857 three harassing problems together
had to be dealt with by the Hoard. In the first place, while
the Society needed a considerable increase in the amount
of money available for its expanding work, a financial panic
destroyed confidence and made values shrink to such an
extent that the donations for the work of the Society were
diminished by some tens of thousands of dollars in one
year. In the same year a perfectly innocent attempt to
secure the Bibles published by the Society against typo
graphical errors had result in an attack of threatening vio
lence upon the Hoard and the Society. By a curious coin
cidence, in 1857, also, the Supreme Court of the United
States made a sweeping decision on slavery which aroused
fierce indignation in the Northern States and strengthened
in the South the foreboding that a terrible conflict might

'246

1841-1861] DISTRESSED FOR MONEY 247

soon spring" from the controversy about slavery. With
drawal from the Union seemed the only means of escape.
Clearly, this political disturbance also threatened the So
ciety's great undertaking. As the people of the whole coun
try became absorbed in personal losses, in doubts of the So
ciety's wisdom and in political quarrels they would forget
the daily needs of the Bible Society. Such forgetfulness
would be in effect like that of men at an air-pump on which
depends the life of a diver hard at work out of sight under
ten fathoms of water.

It is the lot of the Bible Society to be continually in
anxiety between increase, on one hand, of demands from
needy districts and needy people, and on the other hand,
of difficulty in raising money to satisfy these demands. In
1841 the Hoard appropriated $50,000 for the supply of the
foreign field, but when the financial year came to a close
it was found that the donations from Auxiliaries, the chief
source of supply, amounted to less than half of this sum.
In 1842 the receipts of the Society were $8,000 less than in
1841, and one half of the appropriations to the foreign fields
could not be paid because of the lack of money.

The available money in the treasury was reduced by a
habit fallen into by some Auxiliary Societies of ordering
books in quantity without thought of the obligation to pay
for them or of raising money for the purpose. Any Auxil
iary might thus hamper the general work of the Society.
In 1844 the Hoard was besought to cancel a number of such
debts and it had to write off $27,355 from the book ac
count, passing that amount to the account of books granted.
In 1852, $46,373 were thus taken from the assets of the
society and credited as free grants to Auxiliaries. The
Board had no reserve fund to draw upon for such unfore
seen grants. In a year or two, besides such calls, its regu
lar grants of money for home and foreign work were barely
covered by receipts, financial disturbances throughout the
country having reduced contributions.

In 1857, beginning with the collapse of a number of busi
ness houses in Ohio, the Board's sources of supply seemed
to vanish like a brook dried by the hot summer sun. In
August of that year business failures seemed to become

248 STORM CLOUDS [1841-

epidemic. Some 5,000 firms and companies failed in a few
weeks with $290,000,000 of liabilities. The recourse of the
Society in desperate need was the banks which would loan
needed money. But in Philadelphia the banks generally
suspended payment during the latter part of September, and
in October there \vas a general suspension of payments by
banks in Xew York. The Board and the Secretaries, who
can cheerily hold their minds to the increase of Bible cir
culation when material means of increase have taken wing
and gone, must have stalwart trust in God's purpose of
good to the Society.

The Society was then engaged in its second general sup
ply of the destitute. This work ceased as if struck by
lightning. The Auxiliary Societies engaged in the distribu
tion could not raise money even for the freight on books
from Xew York. The dearth of money seemed about to
close a large part of the work of the Bible Society. The
busy presses at the Bible House appeared to be on the verge
of permanent stoppage. Donations fell off until the total
for the fiscal year was less than a hundred thousand dollars.
Long before the year ended the Society had noted as the
greatest hindrance to gifts for its current needs a general
impression that since all churches in the land contribute,
the decision of one church to omit its collection can not
make any great difference to the Society.

Perhaps a wide-spread revival of religion which left a
permanent mark on the nation in 1857 had something to
do with the relief of the anxieties of the Board. Although
the receipts from donations in 1857 were $33,000 less than
in 1856, the legacies received by the Society, which had
averaged less than $20,000 a year, were $152,000 for the
three years 1856, 1857 and 1858. The Managers and the
executive officers had looked to God for help. As a result
Secretary Brigham wrote in the Annual Report, " By God's
favour every financial obligation was met and at the end of
the year the Board owed nothing except gratitude to God."
Again all friends of the Society rejoiced with thanksgiv
ing for a most wonderful deliverance from terrible calamity.

At this same time the hostile criticisms of old friends
greatly harassed the Board. In 1847 complaints from many

i86i] STANDARD EDITION OF THE BIBLE 249

sources had set forth that the Bibles published by the So
ciety differed in small particulars. Some editions had typo
graphical errors ; some varied in the spelling of words ; some
did not conform to any rule in the capitals, in the italics, or
in the punctuation.

The feelings of the Board would revolt against the most
trifling alteration of the authorised text of the Bible, but
good intentions could not guarantee infallibility. Accord
ingly it directed the Committee on Versions to make a care
ful collation of the Society's Bibles with the best editions of
the Queen's Printers in England, and to prepare a Standard
edition to which all future Bibles printed by the Society
would conform.

The Committee on Versions was composed of scholars
of national and even international repute. One notable
figure in the Committee was the RCA". Dr. Edward Robinson,
Professor of Biblical Literature in Andover Theological
Seminary and afterwards in the Union Theological Semi
nary in Xew York ; a man honoured in two continents for
his profound knowledge of the Bible and his high standing
as a scholar. Another member of the Committee was the
Rev. Dr. Samuel H. Turner, Professor of Biblical Learning
in the General Theological Seminary of the Protestant Epis
copal Church, a sound and able commentator on the Bible.
Another member, the Rev. R. S. Storrs, Jr., D.D., was pas
tor of the Pilgrim Congregational Church in Brooklyn,
great in intellect, in power of expression, in oratory as well
as in manly character. The chairman of the Committee
was the Rev. Gardiner Spring, D.D., one of the founders
of the Society and a pastor of great experience and in
fluence.

In three years and a half this committee finished its
weary task of collation, and in 1851 presented to the Board
of Managers a detailed report of the work accomplished,
explaining1 that it " had no authority and no desire to go
behind the translators." This report the Board approved
and published. It seemed to meet with general approval ;
and the Board issued its Standard Bible that year — a
standard because carefully conformed to the authorised ver
sion, as required by the constitution.

250 STORM CLOUDS [1841-

The Society's Standard Bible was circulated for six years,
apparently without objection. Then an unheralded storm
of criticism burst upon the Board. The Maryland Bible
Society, the Pennsylvania Bible Society, and other Auxil
iary societies pointed out changes in the text which they
said affected the integrity of the version. Many good peo
ple refused to use the Standard Bible and sent it back to
the Bible House because it contained changes dangerous
and unauthorised. Ecclesiastical bodies added their pro
tests against the action of the Board of Managers. Re
ligious periodicals and last of all the secular press took up
the cry, with careless and ignorant comments. The Ver
sions Committee had stated that Rev. Dr. McLane, the col
lator, had found twenty-four thousand discrepancies be
tween the six old editions compared, one differing from
another in punctuation or in the use of capitals or italics.
Newspapers immediately declared that the Versions Com
mittee had made twenty-four thousand changes in the Bible;
pens always ready to emphasise human weaknesses de
clared that the Board had " violated the sanctity of the
I>ible"; that the Versions Committee had "butchered the
sacred writings and apparently gloried in the mutilation " ;
learned men of renown cried out in horror and alarm.
The perfidy of the Bible Society was brought before the
Presbyterian (Old School) General Assembly with the
petition that it " find a remedy for such doings or make
one." Happily, the Assembly was wise enough to wish
to learn the facts, and referred the whole matter to the
General Assembly of the following year. Nevertheless
the tribulations of the year 1857 seemed to the Secretaries
burdens heavier than their strength could withstand.

The Board could not neglect the outcry of its friends and
fellow-workmen in different parts of the land. It knew the
value of the labours of the Versions Committee and had
a high opinion of the patient diligence of Dr. McLane, who
had made the collation and endured the drudgery of noting
discrepancies even to commas and parentheses. It feared
that it had made a mistake in acting without close examina
tion of the details of the Committee's work, being led by
confidence in the scholarship of the Versions Committee

i86i] RE VISION OR NO REVISION 251

to sanction unauthorised emendations. Hut the Committee
was charged with exceeding its mandate. Alterations, it
was said, had been made in the text where the King James
translation had seemed to them to be incorrect. The Com
mittee had also made new headings to chapters, having
justly regarded these as no part of the Bible, but a sort of
index prepared by any one superintending the printing.
Eminent clergymen wrote to the papers that the Versions
Committee " objected to criticism as if they were acting by
divine authority instead of being mere intruders meddling
with the oracles of God." The actual facts of the Com
mittee's action must be set forth where they would inform
critics ; otherwise these discussions might agitate the Society
for months. The Board accordingly referred the whole
mass of complaints and criticisms to the Versions Commit
tee with instructions to report upon the whole subject.

The report of the Committee was presented to the Board
in November. It defended in general the decisions of the
Committee but recommended that the headings of chapters in
the Standard Bible should be brought into accord with those
in former editions. This would remove some objections that
had been made, but would not soften criticisms concerning
changes in the text of the Bible which savoured of revision.
The Board, therefore, referred the report back to the Ver
sions Committee for consideration from this point of view.
The Committee, however, did not wish to change its report
and returned the papers to the Board. The Board was now
perilously near a volcanic explosion. "But Rev. Dr. Storrs
suggested the appointment of a special Committee of nine,
made up from nine different denominations, to be arbi
trators, as it were, in this delicate emergency. According,
to usage in such cases, Dr. Storrs as proposer of the plan
was made Chairman of the Special Committee.

In January, 1858, the special committee of nine reported
resolutions for adoption in which Dr. Storrs did not concur,
he urging in a minority report the adoption of a different
set of resolutions. The controversial topic brought to the
Board by these two sets of resolutions was in essence the
question whether or not the Society has a right to revise the
King James Version of 1611, Dr. Storrs urging the right to

252 STORM CLOUDS [1841-

revisc. His resolutions proposed that changes in the text of
the liible be approved where they are authorised "by some
edition heretofore aeeepted in this country or in Great
Britain, or by the unanimous consent of Christian scholars
affirming their correctness."

Keeling was intense, and calm deliberation was essential
to any useful action. Upon the decision of the Board would
depend the peace of the Society and perhaps its very ex
istence as a national institution. The Board therefore de
ferred consideration of the resolutions for two weeks, and
on the 28th of January, 1858, the fateful decision was taken.
Eighty-three persons entitled to vote in meetings of the
Board of Managers were present. After a full and some
what warm discussion, the Hoard adopted by a very large
majority the resolutions offered by the special committee of
nine, as follows :

" RESOLVED, That this Society's present Standard Eng
lish Bible be referred to the Standing Committee on Ver
sions for examination; and in all cases where the same dif
fers in the text or its accessories from the Bibles previously
published by the Society, the Committee is directed to cor
rect the same by confirming it to previous editions printed by
this Society or by authorised British presses ; reference being
also had to the original edition of the translators printed in
1611; and to report such corrections to this Board, to the
end that a new edition, thus perfected, may be adopted as the
Standard Edition of the Society.

" RESOLVED, That until the completion and adoption of
such new Standard Edition, the English Bibles to be issued
by this Society shall be such as conform to the editions of
the Society anterior to the late revision, so far as may be
practicable, and excepting cases where the persons or auxil
iaries applying for Bibles shall prefer to be supplied from
copies of the present Standard Edition now on hand or in
process of manufacture."

The resolutions adopted sustained the principles on which
the Board had always interpreted the first article of the con
stitution and on which it had always acted in respect to the
English Bible. The dissenting resolutions, on the other
hand, admitted the principle that Bible Societies, " on the

i86i] SIX RESIGN FROM COMMITTEE 253

unanimous verdict of Christian scholars," might revise the
Bible. This theory, if carried into execution, would be al
most certain to break up a Society which different denomi
nations sustain. It was well, therefore, that the question
was then permanently settled, since the revision of the Eng
lish Bible was destined to be undertaken a score of years
later.

The by-law which specifies the duties of the Versions
Committee says, in so many words, that its action is to be
" subject to the approval of the Board." Six of the mem
bers of the Committee, however, signed a protest against the
action taken and asked to have it entered on the minutes.
This the Board, of course, refused to permit. The six
signers of the protest, Rev. Dr. Storrs, Rev. E. Robinson,
Rev. S. II. Turner, Rev. Dr. Yermilye, Thomas Cock, M.D.,
and Rev. Dr. Floy, immediately resigned membership in the
Versions Committee. Rev. Gardiner Spring, the Chairman
of the Committee, only remained to carry out the decision of
the Board. The Committee was reconstituted by appoint
ment of nine new members, and proceeded to complete the
Standard Bible of the Society in accordance with the resolu
tions of the Board. Quiet was at once restored.

Meanwhile in this same year of financial panic and of the
attack on the Society for attempting a revision of the Eng
lish IHble, the Supreme Court of the United States made a
decision which profoundly affected the country and there
fore the Bible Society. The case was that of Dred Scott, a
slave who had sued for freedom. The decision of the Su
preme Court was, in the first place, that a slave, not being a
citizen, cannot sue in the United States courts, and in the
second place, slavery being a national institution, it is the
duty of Congress to protect the property of slave-owners,
even when the slave is in free territory. In the North it
was felt that this decision carried the world back twenty
centuries, for it upheld an ideal of citizenship as exclusive
and aristocratic, and a theory of slavery as heartless, as that
of the Roman Empire.

All these things added to the anxieties of the Board, al
though they did not directly affect the Society. The simple
and beneficent work of the Society steadily went on, the

254 STORM CLOUDS [1841-

Board, following St. Paul's rule of thinking no evil and pa
tiently enduring affronts, while political agitators were rush
ing about the country making orations full of fire which in
creased the bewilderment of a people travelling an unknown
road in a fog.

In 1859 John Brown of Kansas, with a small band of
armed followers, seized the arsenal at Harper's Ferry,
Virginia, with the idea that he could induce the slaves to rise
against their masters and gain freedom by insurrection. It
was a mad scheme, for originating which John Brown was
hung; but it filled the hearts of Southerners with a sense of
danger not only to their property but to themselves. The
feeling grew that the whole of the Northern States were in a
conspiracy to stir up insurrection among the slaves in the
South.

For the first time the possibility of war between the two
sections took definite form in the minds of clear-headed men.
The approach of war, though as silent and stealthy as that
of a tiger toward its prey, shakes the social system to its
foundations, and throws upon trade a creeping paralysis.
The difficulty of raising money for benevolent work steadily
increased, although the Southern Auxiliaries, as a rule,
loyally sustained by cordial approval and by material gifts
close relations with the Society. During the uncertainties
of the time a pleasing equilibrium existed in the Society's
relations throughout the country ; but an equilibrium is al
ways uncertain since even a feeble effort may destroy it.

In July, 1861, the South Carolina Bible Convention in its
annual meeting at Sumter passed a most cordial resolution :
" That the American Bible Society merits the confidence and
sympathy of the whole American people in view of the
principles on which it is founded and the wisdom, economy,
and efficiency of its management. It shall have our earnest
co-operation in its plans and efforts for the supply of every
family in our own and other lands with the oracles of God."
The Convention then renewed its pledge to send to the Bible
Society $5,000 during the year for its foreign work.

Four months later Abraham Lincoln was elected Presi
dent of the United States by the vote of all the Northern
States excepting New Jersey.

i86i]' THE CATASTROPHE OF DISUNION 255

It seemed to the people of the South that the unanimity of
this election meant a definite purpose on the part of the
Northern States to wrest slaves from the hands of their
owners. After six weeks of hurried consultation. South
Carolina responded to this vote by passing with enthusiasm
an ordinance of secession from the United States. During
the next five months one after another the Southern States
followed the lead of South Carolina, and organised a new
Union as " the Confederate States of America " with Jeffer
son Davis as President.

Fear of calamity is of the same quality as calamity itself,
but is apt to be more exhausting to strength. The men at
the Bible 1 louse had at this time to contend with much the
same feeling as the soldier who is carried forward with his
regiment toward a clash with hostile forces, not knowing at
what moment, nor in what place, nor in what guise the battle
will begin. But no one at the Bible House flinched. The
point most sensitive to such portentous events is the Treasure
chest of the Society. From the Treasurer's point of view
the nation is divided into two classes, the one consisting of
people who contribute to the Society and the other of those
who do not. Because of the secession movement and its
uncertainties, receipts gradually became less. In the spring
of the year the Board had appropriated for work abroad
$43,439.90, and had notified the different missions that they
would receive this amount. Of this sum $22,283.90 had
been paid over. :' The remainder," said the brave, calm and
trustful men of the Board, " shall be sent out as soon as
collected."

The forty-five years of which the story has been told up
to this point have shown a steady increase of the influence
and power of the Society. The Board had learned the
lesson of expecting, in the spirit of the " bread petition " in
the Lord's Prayer, to have the needs of the Society supplied
one day at a time. It had no reserve of money laid up ;
there was nothing whatever that it could call its own except
the Bible House and the fine equipment for printing books
whenever there was money to pay for printing. But to men
of devotion and experience and prayer storm-clouds cannot
possibly destroy the calmness of hope in God. Political

256 STORM CLOUDS [1841-

disturbances cannot be a hindrance to work for I Tim any
more than the soldier's anxieties before the battle can in
any way hinder his throwing his whole power sturdily into
the struggle which his general directs.

In the midst of the forebodings caused by the secession
movement, came from Florida a declaration that " all will
rally to the support of the American Bible Society which
knows no North, no South, no East, no West, but only one
needy world." Another encouragement to unshaken confi
dence was a message from Charleston, South Carolina, after
the secession ordinance had been passed, remitting to the
American Bible Society $1,000 as the Charleston Auxiliary's
share of the $5,000 promised at the State Convention.

( )n the 1 2th of April, 1861, the Southern troops began
the bombardment of .Fort Sumter, the United States fortress
in front of Charleston. Mr. Lincoln immediately called for
75,000 volunteers to defend the property of the United
States. That meant Civil War.

Twice the Society suffered heavy loss before a shot had
been fired. Secretary James H. McNeill, a Presbyterian
clergyman from Fayetteville, N. C., continued at his post,
framed the resolution for the supply of Scriptures to all
troops in all parts of the country, and on behalf of the Com
mittee presented it to the Board, which unanimously adopted
it. A week later North Carolina formally seceded from the
Union, and Mr. McNeill, like many officers of the United
States Army, decided that he must go with his State. He
accordingly resigned on the 6th of June, after eight years of
faithful and self-denying service of the Bible cause.1 The
second loss was of another class. It was not until some time
had passed that the Board realised that on the day when

1 Later the officers of the Society were saddened by the tragic
result of this decision of a loved associate. Mr. McNeill returned
to North Carolina, where he acted for a time as chaplain in the
Southern army. He later became a Major and afterwards Colonel
of the Fifth North Carolina Cavalry Regiment. He distinguished
himself in various battles throughout the war, was severely wounded
at Gettysburg, and just one week before the surrender of General
Lee at Appomatox, he was killed in action, April 2, 1865, near Peters
burg, Va.

TSf)i| TRUST SUFFICETH 257

the war commenced it lost in the seceded States 653 of its
Auxiliary Societies.

It was perfectly clear to all that the rending" of the
Union menaced the existence of the Society. Never he fore
had disaster seemed so imminent, the Society so defenceless ;
but the Managers and the executive officers quietly con
tinued their work, unfrightened by the possibilities of this
great crisis. In the annual report presented to the Forty-
fifth Annual Meeting, in May, 1861, the Managers, with a
hope born of experience, spoke these brave words : " Amid
the political excitements and financial revulsions of the last
.four months we had reason to expect a large diminution
of the Society's operations. This expectation has been
realised, yet not to the extent that might have been antici
pated. . . . Convinced more deeply than ever by events in
this and other lands that without the controlling and sancti
fying influence of the IJible there can be no permanent se
curity for aught that is valuable to the individual or to the
community, it behooves the Society to address itself with
new earnestness and new hopefulness to its blessed work."

FIFTH PERIOD 1861-1871
CHAPTER XXXI

THE BLIGHT OF CIVIL WAR

A DECLARATION of war can impede the progress of a na
tion, and it can also brand as a crime love of kith or kin
which reaches across a line drawn on the map. For when
war has been declared, to love the enemy is far more crimi
nal than to kill him, and to give him food is treason. A de
mand that men shall hate their fellows, then, is the first
stage of the blight of war. In a civil war this blight assails
the higher ideals and finer sentiments of men who are insep
arable because they have walked together in Christian fel
lowship.

Something of this nature befell the Society in the spring
of 1861, when a part of the people of the United States
sought to rend the nation in twain while a larger portion de
termined at any cost to preserve its integrity. Foresight in
detail of the blind hates and other harrowing features of
civil war did not at first impress the minds of men because
the secession of Southern States was gradual. Beginning
with South Carolina December 20, 1860, five more states
seceded during January, 1861 ; Texas seceded on the 1st of
February ; Virginia did not take the fateful step until April,
after Fort Sumter had been bombarded and occupied by the
Southern troops. Arkansas and North Carolina followed,
and Tennessee did not yield to the public opinion of her
neighbours until the 8th of June, 1861.

The majority of the soldiers called to the colours in the
Xorth had no hostility whatever toward the people of the
South. Far from conspiring together to free the coloured
people in the South, the most of these men would not have
enlisted to free the slaves by violence. Their one motive in
taking arms was to prevent division of the patrimony which

258

1861-1871] TIES UNITING BIBLE LOVERS 259

their Southern brothers had demanded in order to take an
adventurous journey by themselves.

A mature Christian experience, like accurate acquaintance
with any branch of secular knowledge, reveals itself in words
and acts. In such a mighty catastrophe as that which the
Society faced in 1861 there was nothing to do but to pray.
The very pause to ask God for help is at such a time a clear
ing of the mind and a revelation of the solid standing
place for effort found in God's inexhaustible loving kind
ness and wisdom. So it might be said of the Managers at
this time that like the Psalmist, " in the multitude of their
thoughts, God's comforts delighted their souls."

President Frelinghuysen could not believe that a merely
political disturbance could break the ties between the So
ciety and its Auxiliaries. At the Annual Meeting, May 9,
1861, he said:- "While there is much to alarm and afflict
us in the political agitations of our country, one thing is our
special comfort in the cause of the Bible Society: We are
still one, bound together by the bands of Christian kindness,
animated by like hopes, earnest in like purposes and cheered
by the same sympathies." lie doubtless remembered that
General Stonewall Jackson of Virginia had long been a
warm friend of the American Bible Society, sometimes go
ing himself from house to house to collect money for the
support of its work. Mr. Frelinghuysen, like the most of
the members of the Board, thought that old ties uniting them
with friends of the Bible in the South could not be broken
by command of any meddler who had chanced to attain
power.

It is always the difficulties hard to measure which lure
Christian people to momentous decisions. Without reserve
of money to make good a decision for enlargement, depend
ing like Israel in the desert upon food that came each morn
ing and could not be kept until the next, one of the Secre
taries wrote at this time : " God has left us no choice here ;
we must open this book to those who have it not." To the
eternal credit of the Society and its officers they could not
conjure up hatred of the South such as war demands. They
saw only the fact that war would prevent the relief of many
poor people destitute of the Scriptures.

26o THE BLIGHT OF CIVIL WAR [1861-

Deliberately but unanimously the Board adopted the prin
ciple of cordial regard for all needy ones in the land with
out question of their attitude toward the government of the
United States. In May, 1861, it sent to Auxiliary Societies
and Agents throughout the land, North and South, a circu
lar which suggested the need of Bible consolations natural to
those facing imminent danger and urged that every soldier
who enlisted be supplied with a copy of the Scriptures ; the
Board would grant books freely in every case where money
lacked for this great undertaking. Three months later
Auxiliaries in several Southern States having ordered Scrip-
lures without remitting money to pay for them, the Board
unanimously agreed that no cause existed to make any alter
ation whatever in its practice as to the supply of Auxiliaries
that need the aid of the Society.

For some time it seemed possible that the Society might
preserve its ties of fraternity with the Southern Auxiliaries.
Not until the middle of August, 1861, did the President de
clare the Southern States in insurrection. During the year
ending March 31, 1862, thirty-six new Auxiliary Societies
were recognised in nine of the seceding states. These So
cieties still ordered books from New York and the report
shows that during the year Southern Auxiliaries paid the
Society more than $3,000 for books which they had ordered.

Notwithstanding these pleasant relations it became evident
in i8()2 that a number of the Southern Auxiliaries had with
drawn confidence from the Society. A Confederate States'
Bible Society was shortly organised at Augusta and the
Auxiliary tie gave way entirely. In spite of the hopes and
the initiative of the Society, intercourse with some 600
Auxiliary Societies in the seceded states then ended.
Throughout the border states bitter animosities severed na
tional and Christian ties which had bound the people to
gether. People looked askance at each other as though the
Dark Ages had returned and had laid whole communities
under ban of the major excommunication. Some of the
Auxiliaries in the border states held loyally to the parent
Society and suffered for it. In Franklin County, Kentucky,
the Auxiliary bravely kept at work although its members
and all the surrounding people were held in constant fear

1871] DESOLATIONS OF WAR 261

for months because guerrillas from the South continually
made raids into their fair county. At Buckhannon, in one
of the central counties of Western Virginia, a detachment of
Southern cavalry raided the town and a part of their
plunder was the whole stock of Bibles in the Auxiliary de
pository. At Martinsburg, Virginia, near the Maryland
border, the lady in charge of the depository more than once,
finding troops moving to attack the town, was obliged to
carry her Bibles into the cellar. After the enemy had de
parted she would laboriously restore them to the shelves
again.

A little later in the history of the war the Agent of the
Society in Missouri briefly tells of the desolation wrought
in that state, although it did not secede, by the tides of war
flowing back and forth across its fertile fields. " Several
clergymen," he said, " of different denominations have come
into St. Louis for safety. From them I learned that many
Sunday Schools and many churches in this state \vill be
closed for months to come." In Virginia, after battles on
battles had been fought in the Shenandoah A 'alley, one of
the Society's Agents reported, " In this valley of Virginia,
church edifices are nearly all appropriated for hospitals and
other military uses. Ministers are gone, congregations are
broken up, the Sabbath, even, to a great extent is forgotten."

In war-time, railroad trains, steamers, wagons, carts and
pack-horses headed for any point in the enemy's territory
are stopped at some river or some pass in the mountains
where stands a man, with a rifle and fixed bayonet, whose
vocabulary contains but the one word, " Halt ! " Men have
been shot for trying to carry messages or even medicine to
the enemy. After the President's proclamation in August,
1861, the stern fiat of martial law made intercourse with
" the enemy " unpardonable. The greater the desire to
benefit men in a hostile army, the greater the criminality of
him who feels that emotion.

Since a closed door guarded by the bayonet confronted the
peace-loving men in the Managers' Room at New York, the
Society might perhaps have given up its plan to send Bibles
to the soldiers of the South. But responsibility for influence
on men's souls could not be thrown off. The Society was

262 THE BLIGHT OF CIVIL WAR [1861-

bound to do all that it could to check irreligion among sol
diers separated from religious ties and so huddled together
that evil devices would become epidemic. The Board had
determined to place a Bible or Testament in the hands of
every soldier both North and South. All the resources of
the Society should be used to give effect to this determina
tion.

The decision of the Hoard was confirmed by a marvellous
occurrence. When Bibles were sent South to nourish the
souls of the men of the Confederate Army, the guards did
not order a halt. Generals and their subordinates on both
sides of the line let the Book travel under a sort of " Truce
of God." Through this unparalleled respect for a holy
enterprise, some three hundred thousand Bibles, Testaments
and single Gospels during the war passed from New York,
through the firing lines, to comfort the Southern soldiers.
Such a situation was beyond hope.

'Possibly the slow stages by which peace gave place to war
led u]) to this novel situation. From Maryland, with its
long border touching Virginia at all points, and its easy
water communication with the Virginian shores of Chesa
peake Bay, throughout 1861 it was possible to send Bibles
around the flanks of the hostile armies which were gather
ing. Packages of books went from Baltimore to the Vir
ginia Bible Society at Richmond, at the very time when the
New York newspapers were hurling at the Northern Armies
along the border the war cry : " On to Richmond ! "

Immediately after the first impulsive decision of the
Board, in May, 1861, Secretary McNeill wrote to the Vir
ginia Bible Society that the Southern Army would be sup
plied with Scriptures as well as the Northern. The first
books sent in the West were held up as contraband of wrar.
Early in 1862 Federal officers at Cairo, Illinois, stopped a
parcel of New Testaments, as contraband, which was ad
dressed to General (Bishop) Leonidas Folk's Army at
Columbus, Kentucky. This may have been, however, be
cause General Grant at that moment was beginning a move
ment in Kentucky which obliged General Polk to retire from
Columbus, for later there was no further difficulty. Under
the same system a goodly number of Testaments were sent

1871] THE FLAG OF TRUCE FOR BIBLES 263

directly to Richmond under flag of truce with the consent of
the commanding officers of both armies. The Maryland
Auxiliary reported in 1863 that it had sent to the South from
the American Bible Society 86,424 volumes of Scripture
during the year. Some live thousand of these volumes were
sent, with the consent of the authorities, to prisoners of war
in Richmond. All the difficulties which attended the plan
to supply the South were removed, and by the middle of
1863 shipments of books in large quantities from New York
were regularly forwarded under tlag of truce by way of
fortress Monroe to their destination. The books mentioned
above sent by the Maryland Bible Society were in fifty-seven
cases, which were forwarded to Richmond by way of Fort
ress Monroe and City Point under permit from the Secretary
of War; and the United States Government and the Norfolk
Steamship Company paid all expenses of transport. Such
benevolent and picturesque courtesies under flag of truce
were probably unparalleled in the history of wars. They
could only occur where both of the contending governments
and their generals had an inbred respect for the Bible and
conviction of its power to benefit men.

Curiously enough, the grand old Virginia Bible Society
did not at first respond to efforts made to supply its deposi
tory with Scriptures. In November, 1863, a letter was re
ceived from its Secretary which stated that after two years
of war, having received no response to a reasonable request
for grants of Scriptures, it had made other arrangements
and therefore was no longer under necessity of applying to
the American Bible Society. From the outbreak of the war
until the date of this letter, 22,650 volumes of Scripture had
been sent to the Virginia Auxiliary through the Maryland
Bible Society. The cause of the misunderstanding was
that the Virginia Society did not realise that these books
coming from Maryland were sent by the American Bible So
ciety. It, therefore, believing that the Society was not will
ing to supply its needs, sent the Rev. Dr. Hoge to London to
obtain Scriptures from the British and Foreign Bible So
ciety. The considerable grant which was made in response
to Dr. Hoge's request had to take its chances of running the
blockade. It does not appear that many of these books

264 THE BLIGHT OF CIVIL WAR [1861-

reached \'irginia. As to the famine of Bibles in the South
generally, shortly after the books arrived from England,
Rev. Dr. Thorne of North Carolina wrote that with all of
these books and all which had been printed in the South
and all which had been gathered up from churches and Sun-
da}' Schools, the supply was as a drop in a bucket as com
pared with the terrible destitution which existed. In 1863
some of the prisoners of war in Richmond who had been
supplied with Testaments from New York sold their Testa
ments in order to buy food. The price at which they sold
them at the doors of the Libby Prison was twelve or some
times fifteen dollars apiece. This fact impresses one with
the famine of Bibles in Virginia. After the matter \vas
thoroughly understood by the Virginia Auxiliary, its officers
made graceful expressions of appreciation of the spirit and
practice of the Society toward the people and the armies of
the South.

In 1863 the Rev. L. Thorne, pastor of a Baptist Church
in Kingston, Xorth Carolina, managed to send to New York
by way of Baltimore a request for a grant of 25,000 Bibles
and 75,000 Testaments for the North Carolina Board of
Army Colportage. The grant was made and the books re
ceived to the immense joy of Mr. Thorne. He wrote to the
secretaries his heartiest thanks for the gift. A grant not
strictly limited to army work in the South was 25,000
volumes of Scripture granted to the Southern Baptist Sun
day School Board in the same year. As the United States
troops occupied more and more of the Southern territory,
grants were made to the old Auxiliary Societies. Thus the
Memphis and Shelby County, Tennessee, Auxiliary received
a grant of 20,000 Testaments for the Southern Army and
50,000 for the United States Army under General Grant,
then occupying Memphis. The books for the Southern
troops were passed through the line? by order of the gen
eral. After the occupation of Mobile, Alabama, a grant was
made to the old Mobile Auxiliary for use among soldiers and
citizens.

Nor were the Southern soldiers confined in various North
ern States forgotten. Some 35,000 volumes of Scripture
were given to such prisoners of war. Most of them wel-

1871 1 DEATH OF PRES. FRELINGHUYSEN 265

corned the Bible men and their books ; some, especially bitter
against the Government, refused to take Bibles tainted by
contact with " Yankees." Tens of thousands of prisoners
of war exchanged during the four years carried south with
them these pure tokens of Christian kindness shown by men
whom they regarded as their natural foes. But these ship
ments of Bibles had a far greater effect in succeeding years.

If the government had not facilitated the despatch of
Bibles to the South, the Southern people must have re
mained not only without Bibles, but without knowledge of
the kindly wishes of Northern Christians for their highest
welfare. A little later the Society had access to the de
vastated lands where the bitterness of strife and of financial
strain long blocked intercourse with all other people from
the North. The reason why an exception was made in
regard to the Bible Society was the hearty good will shown
during the war in the supply of Scriptures to troops and
other destitute people in the South.

While the stress of war gave keen insight and foresight
and intelligence of plan to the members of the Board and
the executive officers of the Society, President Erelinghuy-
sen and Secretary Brigham did not long participate in the
labours of this strenuous time. Their great work was done
in the years which prepared the Society to endure the test.

On the 1 2th of April, 1862, President Theodore Ereling-
huysen finished his long and useful life. At the time of his
death he was residing, as President of Rutgers College, at
New Brunswick, New Jersey. A year before, he had pre
sided as usual at the annual meeting of the Society and de
livered an interesting and stimulating address upon the duty
of the Society in the presence of the extraordinary disturb
ances then beginning to be felt throughout the country.
During the sixteen years of his service as President of the
Society he showed himself entirely devoted to its interests
because of love for the Bible. In his private life he devoted
a certain time every day to study of the Book in order to
promote his own spiritual development. This habit so left
its mark on his conversation and on his thoughts that he was
a living epistle, known and read of all. When he was sena
tor of the United States he joined with others in maintain-

266 THE BLIGHT OF CIVIL WAR [1861-

ing a weekly Congressional prayer-meeting, and he was also
teacher in a Sunday School in Washington. When he was
dying, one near to him asked, " Is it peace with yon now? "
" All peace," he answered, " more than ever before " ; and
in a few moments he had ceased to breathe. At Air. Fre-
linghuyseirs funeral, in New Brunswick, flags were at half
mast, places of business were closed, the church bells tolled,
and the Governor, the Chancellor, and the Chief Justice of
Xew Jersey, with a number of other distinguished citizens,
were his pall-bearers. And thus while cannon \vere thunder
ing at Yorktown, Virginia, at New Orleans a thousand
miles away, and at many other places between, his body was
committed with all honour to the tomb.

Mr. Frelinghuysen had presided at every anniversary of
the Society since his election as President in 1845, and the
Board of Managers placed on record its deep sense of the
loss which the Society, the church, and the community sus
tained in his death.1

Dr. Brigham's rugged health had shown signs of failing
during a year or more before his death, but it wras none the
less a shock when he passed away on the iQth of August,
1862, in the sixty-ninth year of his age. During thirty-six
years he had served as Secretary of the Society, for the first
fifteen of these years enjoying the counsel and fellowship of
the sturdy and noble senior Secretary, Rev. Dr. James
Alilnor. His character was so simple and sound that every
one trusted him. lie had the quickest sympathy with every
thing which concerned the welfare of mankind, and he lived
with the one purpose of advancing the kingdom of God.
The completeness and harmony of his qualities especially
fitted him for the office of Secretary with its many delicate
and difficult relations. Rev. Dr. William Adams in preach
ing the funeral sermon gave a remarkably graphic descrip
tion of the duties of Corresponding Secretary of the Bible
Society. Partly to remind the reader that this description
of the Secretary's duties holds good to the present day, we
quote this part of Dr. Adams' address :

" If any one has imagined that the whole duty of a Secre
tary of one of our national Christian Societies consists in

1 Manager's Minutes, Vol. 9, p. 260.

1871] EULOGY OF SECRETARY BRIGHAM 267

writing and filing a certain number of letters, he has not
caught the first idea of the service. It is not asserting too
much to say that the general success of the organisation will
depend upon its Secretary. I le is ordinarily its chief execu
tive officer; he is surrounded and aided by various com
mittees giving him counsel and sharing with him responsi
bility, but he must devise, and arrange, and ] reject, and
accomplish. Compute the many delicate questions certain
to arise in a Society like the Bible Society ; the many Agents
and employees in all departments in every district of the
country and the world : the changes of events which are to
be observed and reported throughout the vast field which
has no limit save that imposed by our own capacity in pos
sessing and cultivating it ; forget not the occasions, public
and private, with manifold details which are to be improved
for stimulating the indifferent, informing the churches —
compute, I say, all these various interests, claims, duties, and
services, and tell us what tact, expertness, justice, magna
nimity, patience, gentleness, scholarship, and piety arc need
ful in one invested with such an office and conducting it with
complete success. That our friend and brother attained this
success is an honour of no ordinary kind."

CHAPTER XXXII

TESTS OF THE SOCIETY'S EFFICIENCY

AFTER the death of President Frelinghuysen, the Hon.
Luther Bradish, for many years a Vice-President of the
Society, was unanimously elected President. Mr. Bradish
had won the high regard of the members of the Board and
of the Society by his genial simplicity of soul, attractive
manners, and especially his matter-of-course Christian char
acter. He was a member of the Protestant Episcopal
Church, and as a liberal, warm-hearted Christian he extended
the right hand of fellowship to all servants of Jesus Christ.
In his early life, Mr. Bradish had served the government,
having been sent by President Monroe in 1820 to visit coun
tries lying about the Mediterranean Sea. His duty was to
collect information on commercial conditions preparatory to
the negotiation of treaties. He spent five or six months in
Constantinople and prepared the way for a commercial
treaty with Turkey, although meeting much covert opposi
tion from the Ambassadors of European powers with the
single exception of Russia. His advice as to the best method
of procedure in negotiating a treaty with Turkey was fol
lowed with success under President Jackson. As Vice-
President of the Society Mr. Bradish attracted attention to
the qualities which had made him speaker of the New York
Assembly and later Lientenant-Governor of New York and
presiding officer of the State Senate. His clearness of com
prehension and statement, his courtesy to all, and his skill
in advancing business were remarkable. The same qualities
served him when presiding in the Board of Managers. To
preside at such a meeting on the first Thursday of August,
1863, was his last public act. After the meeting he went to
Newport, his usual summer residence, and on the 3Oth day
of August his long life was quietly closed. It was noted
at the "time as a striking fact that the early presidents of

268

1861-1871] THE STIMULUS OF WAR 269

the Bible Society all reached advanced age with dignity and
usefulness. Boudinot died at the age of eighty-one, John
Jay at eighty-four, John Cotton Smith at eighty-one, Theo
dore Frelinghuysen at seventy-five, Luther Bradish at
eighty ; and like the worthies mentioned in the Book of He
brews, " these all had witness borne them through their
faith."

On the death of President Bradish, James Lenox, Esq., a
Presbyterian gentleman long and favourably known for his
constant interest in the well-being of the Society, having be
come a member of the Board of Managers in 1837, and a
Vice-President in 1852, was elected President of the So
ciety. His election gave general satisfaction to those who
had the interests of the Society at heart, and he presided
over its deliberations during the two last years of the war.

Although war brings blight it may also bring needed stim
ulus. The great need of the armies engaged in fierce com
bat, and the decision to supply all soldiers with the Scrip
tures was a blessing to the armies and to the Society ; to
the armies North and South it was a blessing by influence
upon individual soldiers and sailors to which an officer in
the United States Navy testified when he said: " I am not
a religious man myself, but my best men are." To the So
ciety it was a blessing because in an enterprise of this mag
nitude difficulties seemed ever piling mountain-high, and
such an environment has the effect of rendering the minds
of men more alert and discerning.

Since the soldiers were young men of the teachable age,
need was strongly felt to help them while separated from
the restraints of home life. For young men left without
moral restraint tend to degenerate ; and perhaps it is more
true of the young soldier than of other young men that
when he begins to go down-hill plenty of people seem glad
to speed his gait. So the Society was ruled by the highest
possible motives. War does not annul Christ's command
to spread the gospel.

To the people at home an important reason for taking the
Bible to soldiers arose from the thought of their being ever
in danger of sudden death and therefore naturally inclined
to seriousness. But the imminence of battle rarelv led the

270 TESTS OF SOCIETY'S EFFICIENCY [1861-

youthful soldier to turn to his little Testament. When
battle impends the soldier's mind perceives little but the
work before his eyes. Like the young man in serious ill
ness, asked if he had made his peace with God, the soldier
must have done that long before, or he can never do it in the
midst of struggle.

A Fen in the army are much like men out of the army.
When there is no fighting and life runs like a song it is
easy to forget God, for most men who are comfortable do
not note what they owe to God's loving-kindness. Many
of these soldiers were children of Christian parents having
the habit of going to church and Sunday School, of Sab
bath-keeping1, devoted to God and to reading his word.
Many of the young fellows had a store of Bible verses
which they liked to recall ; such as " The Lord is my shep
herd," " Cast thy burdens on the Lord." Many knew that
the Bible furnishes cheer and stimulus which is precious, but
cannot be gained from comrades in the camp. Little by
little, however, the soldier may forget his habit of reading
the Bible. After a time his conscience forgets it, too. Lie
thinks he means well and that surely is enough, even if he
does make a mistake once in a while. In the camp the devil
is always at work with obscene literature, with gambling out
fits, with sneers of hard-featured teachers of atheism, and
where the camp is near a city, with unlimited liquor and
the smiles of painted women.

In the trenches, where day after day to stand up or even
to raise the head is sure death, there is a certain monotony
which wears on the nerves. In the camp, too, while troops
are waiting orders, monotony often becomes insufferable.
There is absolutely nothing to do or to plan day after day,
perhaps week after week. At such times the little book is
taken up as a last resource, and is liked because it brings
memories of home. Unexpectedly it stimulates thought,
and it offers the marching orders of Jesus Christ as a direct
and personal message most comforting to a lonely soldier-
boy.

When the camps w^ere filling with recruits and instruc
tions had gone forth from the Bible House for the supply
of Scriptures to the soldiers as they were enlisted, the de-

i8/i| STRENUOUS WORK AT BIBLE HOUSE 271

mand for books was so sudden and so great that the stock
in the depository was completely exhausted. Orders came
from all parts of the country at once and it was nearly
impossible to fill them and keep any books in the depository.
In the year ending March 31, i8(>i, the issues from the Bible
House were 721,878 volumes. The issues of the following
year were 1,092,842 volumes.

Meanwhile the direct ions to the Agents throughout the
country were to " give these books freely to the destitute
people of the Southern States as occasions offer in connec
tion with the movements of our forces. The American
Bible Society has seen no reason to depart from its old prin
ciples and practice as a national and catholic institution and
such it will remain, by (iod's blessing. To all of our people,
loyal or disloyal, we hold forth the Word of Life." The
Society exists to give away what it has, and still to give
away.

This continual giving caused the printing of books to lie-
come an immense enterprise. At the Bible House it was a
time such as causes a business firm, like the rich man of the
parable, to pull down what it has and build greater. The
printing equipment at the Bible 1 louse was composed of six
teen power presses, and in the printing office, bindery, and
shipping office together, over 300 persons were employed.
Books were printed and bound at a rate never before known
in the history of the Society. In the year ending March 31,
1862, 370,000 volumes more were issued than in the previous
year. In the one month of September, 1862, 168,632
volumes were printed in the Bible House; a total equivalent
to an average of seven volumes every minute of every work
ing day. In 1863 the I 'card of Managers, with some hesi
tation, decided to print the New Testament in nine separate
portions, small enough to go into a vest pocket. As an ex
periment, in April, 1861, the gospel of John, the Book of
Psalms, and the Book of Proverbs had been separately
printed in such volumes, and the demand for these books,
amounting to 85,000 copies in two years, was decisive.
Some members of the Board had held back from approv
ing the plan, but they could not resist the evidence of the
demand, especially from the Army and Navy. In 1864, it

272 TESTS OF SOCIETY'S EFFICIENCY [1861-

was announced that the issues during the three years of war
had amounted to 3,778,105 volumes, which was more than
the total issues of the first twenty-eight years of the So
ciety's work. More than a million and a half of these books
had been distributed in the last year, and so it came to pass
that in 1866, on looking back, it was found that issues from
the Bible House during the four years for home use alone
amounted to 5,297,832 volumes.

In the supply of the Northern troops, at the very first
the whole effort of the Society was directed to furnishing
Auxiliary Societies with books enough to enable them to put
the Scriptures into the hands of men as they enlisted. A
second phase of this work of the Society was the undertak
ing to supply directly the troops in the field; and finally,
when the Christian Commission had shown its remarkable
ability to handle great questions, of supply, the Society de
voted its attention to furnishing the Christian Commission
with all the books which it could distribute.

The Auxiliaries, as a rule, supplied the soldiers as they
first enlisted, each one caring for the quota from its field.
For instance, the New Hampshire Auxiliary Bible Society
supplied eight regiments and individual companies as they
were organised, giving them 6,000 New Testaments. The
Vermont Bible Society gave ten thousand volumes to the
troops from that state. The Massachusetts Bible Society
supplied 40,000 volumes to the Army and Navy, besides
making a donation of about $2,800 to the national Society
for its general work. The Connecticut Society and eleven
smaller societies in that state supplied twenty-eight regi
ments, and a large number of sick and wounded in hospitals.
In the first two years of the war Auxiliaries purchased from
the Bible House over one million copies of Scripture which,
for the most part, were given to the soldiers and sailors. At
the great military centres the Auxiliaries had to ask aid
from the national Society. For instance, the Washington
City Auxiliary asked for a grant of 18,000 volumes in 1864.
It had supplied the Army of the Potomac itself with Scrip
tures before this, and this grant was asked for the hospitals
and forts in the neighbourhood of Washington, and the
flotilla upon the Potomac River. This Auxiliary reported

1871] DISTRIBUTION IX ARMIES 273

upon the local religious opportunities of these soldiers.
Among the hospitals and in the forts many Bible classes had
been organised, and chaplains from the hospitals were in the
habit of conducting such Bible classes.

The New York Bible Society did a splendid work among
the soldiers passing through the city, from all parts of the
country, and also among the crews of the vessels of war
anchoring in New York Harbour; but like the Washington
Bible Society, it was obliged to rely upon the national So
ciety for aid in its work, sometimes calling for a grant of
ten or twelve thousand dollars' worth of books in one year.

It is a matter of interest to see that in the year ending
March 31, 1863, the national Society received $45,442.16 in
donations from 284 Auxiliary Societies, and in the same year
it received in payment for books $193,761.95 from 711
Auxiliary Societies ; this circumstance showing to some ex
tent the efforts made by the Auxiliaries, even when they
were poor, to pay at least for the books which they used in
their fruitful work for the army.

Meanwhile the United States Army assumed vast propor
tions. Call after call was sent out by the President, now for
300,000, now for 300,000 more, then for a draft or conscrip
tion of 500,000, and so on. The losses in the war were very
great. Fully half of the soldiers who fought the scores of
battles were under twenty years of age. It is sometimes dif
ficult to realise the enormous extent of territory involved in
these events. Armies along a frontier that measured liter
ally thousands of miles, fiercely struggled for life; lost it;
won it. The tremendous sweep of the murderous contest
can be judged from the soldiers' diaries. Some of them
during the terrible four years marched five or six thousand
miles in order to win peace on the field of battle. These
facts led the Board in February, 1863, to authorise the Com
mittee on Distribution to issue for the army 475,000 Testa
ments and separate portions.

During the war there was great waste of Bibles and Testa
ments as of other articles of equipment. Battlefields swal
lowed up hundreds of the little books on the bodies of dead
soldiers. Wounded men commonly lost all their belong
ings. Again and again, when troops were ordered suddenly

274 TESTS OF SOCIETY'S EFFICIENCY [1861-

to break camp, in the hurry of packing knapsacks and camp
equipage, perhaps in the night, with other small articles these
little hooks were unwittingly left behind, to the amazement
of villagers who searched the vacant ground the next day.
The book in a soldier's kit is like a seed in soil that may be
parched by drought or Hooded by cloudburst or become food
for insects ; yet these risks must be taken, for the wrorld will
starve if no seed is sown.

Let it not be imagined, however, that this seed was
wasted or that the work of the Society for the army was
not appreciated. In a company composed entirely of
Roman Catholics half of the men took the Testaments with
cordial thanks and almost all of those who refused did so
because they could not read. Workers of the Christian
Commission, writing from the bloody fields of Virginia,
often expressed sincere belief that the soldiers are more
accessible to the gospel than the young men at home. ' The
soldier's Bible seems to receive better care than anything
else which he has." Rev. H. A. Reid, chaplain of the 5th
Wisconsin Infantry, wrote, " The Bible is more read and
reverenced by men in the army than by the same men at
home. These men on the average are going to be better
citizens than they w7ere when they came out to take part in
the war." A sick soldier at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri,
showed his Uible to Agent Wright. It was torn, \vater-
soaked, defaced by the rough usage of the campaign. " I
love to read this book," he said, 4< ten times more than I did
when my wife put it into my knapsack. When I feel lonely
and cast down, 1 go off by myself alone and read a chapter
in the Bible. Then I can pray and then all becomes bright
again."

One of the Agents in the Southwest talked with a Roman
Catholic Captain in General .Banks' army. It was at the
end of his second year of service. " Did the men take care
of their Testaments?" he asked. "Yes, and they read
them too!" "Could you see any good results from their
reading the Testament?" "Yes, I've seen men who were
of the lowest scum of humanity become sober, thoughtful,
respectable fellows ; and because this is so I want to do
something to help send the New Testament into the army."

1871! SUCCESSES OF THE COMMISSION 275

And the Captain insisted on giving the Agent ninety cents,
which happened to be all the money he had. A Massa
chusetts pastor who served the Christian Commission in the
army of the Cumberland centering about Chattanooga,
Tennessee, said: "I have contributed to the Bible So
ciety all my life, but I never knew its worth and power until
to-day. The first collection 1 shall ask from my church will
be for that Society to buy Testaments for soldiers, and the
next will be for the Christian Commission to hand them over
to the army."

The Christian Commission was organised in the Bible
House by the Young Men's Christian Association. It aimed
especially to foster the higher life of the soldier. It ob
tained from the Society at various times considerable grants
of Hibles, Testaments and portions, which it received at the
Bible 1 louse and carried to the troops in various parts of
the country. It became a great distributing Agency in con
nection with all of the United States .Armies and the various
squadrons of the Navy, fts work of distribution reached
soldiers and sailors in their camps, in the hospitals, and
even on the battle-field. About fifteen hundred clergymen
and laymen took part in the work of distribution and it was
a wonderful success in accomplishing what it set out to do.
As time went on, the supply of the soldiers and sailors was
more and more systematisecl. The Board could not and did
not throw off its responsibility for the proper use of grants
made for the troops. It appointed capable Agents, one for
each great Military District, and a wonderful work was
carefully and thoroughly done through the Christian Com
mission. The whole number of Scriptures granted to the
Commission and by it put in circulation during the war was
1,466,848 volumes. The value of the books granted by the
Society for this great distribution through the Christian
Commission was $179,824.59.

Mr. George Hay Stuart, President of the Merchant's
National Bank, of Philadelphia, the President of the Chris
tian Commission, wrote to the Board of Managers in March,
1866, " There are few homes in the land where a Union sol
dier has thrown off his knapsack without bringing back from
the war a book from your press, and to many a home has the

276 TESTS OF SOCIETY'S EFFICIENCY [1861-

pocket-worn Testament found its way as the only memento
of the one who will never return. Henceforth, that is the
family heirloom."

Upon the Society and upon its future new forces were
now acting. They sprang from the stress of the period of
the civil wrar. The bonds uniting different elements in the
Society and in the Auxiliaries grew stronger ; tendencies to
admit responsibility for the support of the Society became
more marked among the people; the world-value of Bible
work received new light. The executive officers and the
Board of Managers could no more escape the constant pres
sure for large and effective action than a diver in his helmet
can escape atmospheric pressure when he is fifty feet under
water. But little occurrences showing how thoroughly the
people sympathised in all great work taken in hand often
brought encouragement and inspiration. At a Bible meet
ing in Arkansas the Society's Agent in his address men
tioned the two mites of the widow who cast her all into the
Treasury and a gift of sixty-eight cents from a woman in
Turkey who sold her copper kettle to get it. The next
morning a little girl came to him bringing a pair of new
woollen socks. " A I other has no money," she said, " but she
sends these. They are all that she has to give to help send
the Bible to those who haven't any." The mother was a
widow with four children. Such gifts of love for the poor
which the Society received quickened the faith of those
hard-pressed men at the Bible House.

The return of peace found the Society with larger re
sources at command and with broader and nobler aims than
at any previous period of its history. Before the war was
through the men at the Bible House learned that the burdens
of war-time had been placed upon them for good by the
providence of God Himself, and their hearts went out like
the Psalmist, in prayer and thanksgiving: " For Thou, oh
God, hast proved us ; Thou hast tried us as silver is tried ;
Thou broughtest us into the net ; Thou layedst a sore burden
upon our loins ; Thou didst cause men to ride over our
heads ; w<e went through fire and water, but Thou broughtest
us out into a wealthy place ! " l

1 Psalms 66, vv. 10-12.

CHAPTER XXXIII

SOME FRUITS OF CHRISTIAN FEDERATION

THE surrender of the Southern armies in the first months
of 1865 revealed their utter exhaustion. This brought to
thoughtful people a beginning of realisation of the desola
tions which war had wrought in the South. In the northern
and western parts of Virginia almost every grove was
gashed by shells and every held seamed by the trenches of
attack and defense. Military necessities had destroyed
enormous quantities of property. Georgia had been deso
lated by many battles ; and finally the march of General Sher
man's Army from Atlanta to Savannah, when the troops
fed from the country as they went, left a track from forty
to sixty miles wide, stripped of everything that could be
eaten, and of all fences and outbuildings which could be
burned for cooking the soldiers' daily food. The main
artery of communication, the Georgia Central Railroad, had
been taken up rail by rail for three hundred miles, all the
cross-ties burned, and the rails heated to redness in the
fires of burning, and twisted around trees or telegraph poles
lest some one should fancy that they might be relaid.

The same desolation scarred the fair face of South Caro
lina and North Carolina, where Sherman's army passed in
its long, hard progress from Savannah to Goldsboro and
Raleigh. Families had not been injured in their persons,
and there had been no general destruction of dwellings; but
all fit cattle had been devoured ; every horse and mule in the
path of the army had been impressed, old worn-out beasts
being left in exchange. Wherever the armies marched dur
ing the terrible four years, desolation indelibly recorded
their path. In a large part of the Southern States the peo
ple were reduced to a dead level of want. There were no
favoured classes, for all classes were poor beyond under-

277

278 CHRISTIAN FEDERATION [1861-

standing. A pitiful letter which came to the Bible House
in Xew York in 1866 illustrates this general condition. A
retired minister was living in an obscure village in North
Carolina. He had been for several years a Life Member
of the Society. He wrote that he was seventy-four years
old and, much impoverished by the war, he had no means
to buy candles by which to read his Bible in the evening.
Hence he found it impossible to read the small type of
an ordinary Bible. The light of his lire was too feeble. So
he begged the Board to let him have a Bible with large
print, for he would fain have the solace of reading in the
evening hours. It is needless to say that this venerable
saint received immediately a copy of the Xew Testament
and Psalms in Great Primer type, the largest which the
Bible Society possesses.

" When God shakes the nations lie magnifies His own
word. It moves right forward in the track of mighty provi
dences, and leagues its powers with all the grand issues of
the age. It has been so in every great struggle for progress,
in the fall of Rome, in every world convulsion in modern
history ; it is to be so in the case of our own tremendous
conflict." 1 The great religious question now before the
Society was the same in essence as that which gave the
Bible Society its existence : the necessity of encouraging
religious life among isolated and cheerless families. Here
the Society could give first aid. The feeling of all in the
Bible House was that there should be no withholding of
the priceless boon of the Bible to those willing to receive it.
It was not a question of money, but of religion ; not a mat
ter of calculation, but of faith in God and service for His
Kingdom. For the destitution in the South was vast, piti
ful, appealing to the inmost souls of all members of the
Society. The old stimulus of need to win multitudes left
without the Bible applied with new force in this case; and
with general approval it was decided in 1865 that among
the works by which the Society should celebrate its jubilee
year, a prominent place must be given to the re-supply of
the South. In all those Southern regions the Society had

1 Secretary Iloklich in the Annual Report of 1863, page 95.

1871] COMFORT FOR DISHEARTENED 279

rendered comfort and solid encouragement to the disheart
ened population. It could not give away its money. The
case was something like that of St. Peter at the temple gate
when he said to the cripple, " Silver and gold have I none ;
what I have I give thee." The Board foresaw its immense
responsibility for aiding the restoration of all the devas
tated fields.

The Society's Army Agency on the old \var area was con
tinued for the supply of troops in many places east of the
Mississippi River and for some 80,000 soldiers who were
retained on the Western Plains and in Texas. This gave
an opportunity for the distribution of Scriptures in different
parts of the South without new machinery and it was found
that wherever the Hoard, the Auxiliaries and the Bible
Agents met need, efficient work was immediately done.
The work of these agents brought life to dead Societies as
well as strength to the Society.

Circumstances which demanded of the Agents the most
prompt supply were those of the lowliest of Christ's fol
lowers. In California the Society's Agent found an old
woman from Texas living in a ragged tent alone in an en
campment of Southern people who had moved to the Pacific
coast after the war. She could hardly express her joy at
receiving a copy of the New Testament bound with the
Psalms and in type large enough for her feeble vision. As
the Agent left her he congratulated the woman on her hope,
of a resting place some day in the " city which hath foun
dations." He said to her, as a contrast to her insecure
little tent: "There no rough winds nor stormy skies will
come to destroy our peace." The response of the old lady
sprang from her heart, and was not phrased in accordance
with the grammar of the schools. She joyfully said: " Nary
wunst! "

Southern Christians responded to these kindly offices
like those who watch for the dawn. They also co-operated.
Rev. Mr. Gilbert, one of the Missionary Agents in the South,
speaking of some of the good people of Virginia wrote that
it seemed to him an omen for great good that " the first
fruit of benevolence coming out of the soil trampled by
the iron hoof of war, should be labour in behalf of that

280 CHRISTIAN FEDERATION [1861-

inspired volume which lies at the basis of our liberties."
The overtures of the Bible Society in other states were
ans\vered almost as soon as the cannon ceased to roar.
Gov. Brownlow, of Tennessee, and a number of leading
citizens of that state offered their services to help in Bible
distribution. The Society's Agent at Nashville wrote that
he never encountered people so anxious to buy family Bibles,
but there was absolutely no money in the country districts,
and so these eager people had to make the best of the
smaller and cheaper Bibles which the Society could give
them.

The Southwestern Bible Society, at New Orleans, voted
in 1865 to resume co-operation with the American Bible
Society so as to supply troops as well as families. Several
denominations in South Carolina took pains to inform the
Bible Society of their gratitude for help in supplying the
destitute with Scriptures. In North Carolina, in 1866,
fifteen Auxiliary Societies as well as a number of Bible
Committees assumed a share in the general supply of the
destitute which was recommended by the Society. Missis
sippi friends of the Bible were ready to co-operate with the
Society although no money could be raised and grants would
have to be asked from New York without present return.
In September of 1865 the Virginia and the Alabama Bible
Societies resumed Auxiliary relationship. Rev. Dr. Wood-
bridge, President of the Virginia Society, wrote to Secretary
Holdich, " We desire that the old relations shall be resumed
entirely as though the war had not been. This is the spirit
and the object of the Board of Managers of the Virginia
Bible Society." The Alabama Society created much sur
prise at the Bible House by announcing that it had in hand
$600 and would shortly receive $800 more, making $1,400
altogether which before long it would send to the Treasurer
at New York.

A year later the Virginia Auxiliary ordered $10,000 worth
of Scriptures for depositories in that state. The Society
sent the books charging only one-third of the actual cost. In
South Carolina where people were suffering in 1867 f°r
bread, applications for Scriptures came from thirty-one dis
tricts which were quickly supplied. In Georgia where the

1871] EAGERNESS IX THE SOUTH 281

white people were on the verge of starvation, 15,000 vol
umes were sent as grants to Auxiliary Societies desiring to
distribute Scriptures. In Arkansas where a large part of
the population were hungry all the time because there was
no way of earning money, the Society granted, in 1867,
$6,000 worth of Scriptures. Another incident of the same
year, showing the eagerness of the Southern people to re
ceive Scriptures in their terrible destitution, was that con
tributions of money were sent to the Society from Southern
States which had not yet begun to recover from the losses
of the wrar. There was great significance, however, in the
fact that two years later the number of Auxiliaries in the
Southern States had reached a total of 856. Cordial Chris
tian sympathy had not been extirpated by the bitterness of
the temporary estrangement.

During the later years of the period which ends with
1871, when the Southern States received full control of their
own affairs, tremendous social and financial problems still
rested upon the Southern people. Letters from South
Carolina in 1866 mentioned depression and discouragement
because of the unsettled condition of the country. In North
Carolina friends wrote that money was more scarce than
ever, because labour had not yet been regulated. In Mis
souri, a border state which had supplied men to both armies,
the return of the discharged soldiers revealed, if it did not
create, new antagonisms. Jefferson City, the capital of the
State, had become a moral desolation; most of the churches
had been closed and many church organisations had become
extinct. These pressing problems were small, however, in
the presence of the questions relating to freed slaves.

For years the Society had supplied such coloured people
in the South as were able to read. In the later years of the
war these grants increased. The Bible was everywhere
welcomed by coloured people. Rev. Dr. L. D. Barrows
Superintendent of Education among the negroes of South
Carolina, Georgia, and Elorida, wrote in 1866, asking Scrip
tures for coloured people. " To my mind," he said, " there
is not one open door on this round earth where the Society
can do so much good as by supplying coloured people just
learning to read. I submit to you, no reader will you find

282 CHRISTIAN FEDERATION [1861-

who will thumb this book like these new readers, who may
be seen in groups and squads on the streets and on the
plantations reading and giving the benefit of their reading
to others."

In the first year after the war it is estimated that at
least 500,000 negroes learned to read. Rev. W. F. Baird,
the Agent of the Soeiety among the coloured people of the
South, wrote in 1866 of a conversation with a negro forty-
four years old who had stumbled through a recitation in
English, and sensible of his failures had remarked, " If
the Lord lets me live until to-morrow I will have that lesson
right!"" Another illustration of the eagerness to learn
which he found among the coloured people was a man who
worked for his physical life at his trade of making cotton-
gins from half past six in the morning until five o'clock
in the evening, who then gave himself to intellectual life,
walked two miles to a night school, and after an hour in
attendance there, every night studied until twelv.e or one
o'clock. His idea was that he would like to be a well-
equipped man.

Nevertheless, the case of the coloured people was most
perplexing. During the last year of the war, especially
while Sherman's army marched through Georgia and the
Carolinas, great masses of coloured men, women and chil
dren, left the plantations and fled to the army for protec
tion and support. The government, through the Freed-
man's Bureau, tried to care for the blacks, their support,
education, and their labour on the plantations under equi
table contracts ; but this government aid extended only
through 1870, when the Freedmen's Bureau was given up.
Throughout the years immediately after the war, the two
great social questions before the nation were, first, the pro
tection and restoration of political rights to the white pop
ulation of the South who had staked and lost all ; and sec
ond, the protection and education of the newly emancipated
slaves.

It was interesting to discover that in some Southern
States Auxiliary Bible Societies as they were re-organised,
received coloured people to membership. From North
Carolina in 1866 came many demands from Bible Commit-

1871] MONEY FOR NEEDS 283

tees for large type Scriptures for the use of coloured people
who were not yet skilled readers. Of course, the newly
emancipated people were included in the general supply of
the South already ordered.

The question of money to meet these extraordinary de
mands was a serious one. Hitherto the Society had lived
as did the Israelites in the wilderness who were fed by daily
manna. A condition of the daily bounty was that the peo
ple might not make the gift an object in life. There must
be no hoarding, no gluttony, there must be nothing which
might diminish the sense of daily dependence upon the most
gracious God. The Society had held to the principle of
spending all its receipts. It had no invested funds, owned
no stocks of any kind; its entire property was the Bible
House and the plant for printing and binding. Nothing
could have been done to meet the sudden demands upon the
Treasury had not the school of the years of war taught
the nation that this great work of P»ible distribution calls
for support as a benefit to the whole nation.

In 1862 a Committee was appointed to review the general
operations of the Society in order to propose any possible
economies. While this matter was under consideration, the
British and Foreign Bible Society in a fraternal letter,1
as an expression of Christian sympathy offered a donation
of 2,000 pounds sterling to the American Society. In the
meantime, however, Providence had placed the Treasury
beyond need of this aid, but this did not diminish apprecia
tion of the offer or the warmth of expressions of grati
tude in the letter which declined the generous oiler.

In 1863 the Finance Committee was able to announce the
complete payment of the mortgage upon the Bible House.
The building had been paid for without taking a cent from
ordinary contributions for Bible work. Later consider
able amounts were paid into the Treasury in connection with
the Jubilee celebration. The Pennsylvania Bible Society,
for instance, made a donation, as a jubilee offering, of $5,000
for printing the Arabic Bible, and $5,000 for supplying
20,000 Testaments and Psalms to be distributed in the

1 February 2, 1862.

284 CHRISTIAN FEDERATION [1861-

Southern States. Small amounts came from unexpected
quarters. In i8(>4 the Rev. Dr. Van Dyck, translator of the
Arabic Bible, sent fifty dollars to the Society as a thank
offering- for being spared to complete that great work which
had occupied sixteen years. Among the many legacies re
ceived during this period was one from J. E. Worcester, the
lexicographer, who bequeathed the copyright and income of
sales of his great dictionary to the American Bible Society
and the American Peace Society, each to have one half of
the income. People in Turkey sent donations of over $1,000
to be irsed in giving the Bible to f reedmen. Of this amount
forty dollars was from a Mohammedan who was inter
ested in the emancipation. Does any one ask why a 11 o-
hammedan, taught that slavery is ordained of God, should
feel sympathy for American slaves? The answer is that
American missions and Bible agents during a whole genera
tion had been teaching Turkey the nature of gospel
philanthropy. It was natural for a man subtly moved
through the Bible, to send his gift for freed slaves to the
Bible Society.

In 1865 the Board through such gifts found that it had
more money than it immediately required and for the first
time invested surplus funds for emergencies. In 1867 the
receipts of the Treasury from thirty-nine states and terri
tories amounted to $743,000. The people had rallied to the
support of the Bible Society, and rescued it from serious
embarrassment.

The greatest amount ever received in a single year as
donations from Auxiliary Societies was $113,309 given in
1866. The largest sum received up to that time in a single
year in donations from churches and individuals was $71,-
874 in 1866. This sum was not exceeded in any year until
forty years later. The total of donations from churches
and individuals during the war period, (1861-1870) was
$507,925; the total of Auxiliary donations was $814,517;
and the total of legacies received during the same period
was $865,252 — that is to say, aside from the receipts from
sales of books $2,187,694 had been paid into the Treasury
for the general work during this period of war and un
paralleled expenditure. The stress of the times had aroused

1871] STRENUOUS EXPERIENCES 285

the people to deny themselves in support of this great na
tional enterprise. The receipts from sales during the same
period, amounting to $3,053,802, fully provided for the
large expenditure in the printing department. And so it
came to pass, in the good providence of God, that the So
ciety was able promptly to do its considerable work for
the Southern States, without neglecting work abroad.

Not only upon the members of the Hoard of Managers
did the stress and burden of responsibility for this work
weigh in these times, but upon each of the Secretaries and
upon the Treasurer; each one encumbered by the magnitude
of the needs most closely before his eyes. All were hatwited
at times by dread of overlooking needs, of failing to gauge
the quality of incessant demands for help, and of distinguish
ing between trust in God and blind self-will when the fields
clamoured for help although the Treasury seemed empty
and no supplies in sight. Each of these men, however, was
fitted and furnished so that from the treasure of his godly
heart he could bring out things new and old for the inspira
tion and stimulus of his associates. So it came to pass
that these strenuous experiences tended to weld together
these men of different theological views through their elemen
tary beliefs, hopes, and habits. Out of this time of stress,
then, the Society came forth a more efficient, more aspiring
institution, more than ever convinced of its divine mission.
Like the Israelites in their education as the chosen people
of God, it found its daily journey guided by the pillar of
cloud or of fire, it had its hungers, its thirsts, its tempta
tions, perhaps, to give up so wearing a struggle, and its
repeated rewards of trust ; but throughout its rugged path
its power was union in hope for the land to be occupied as
a province of the Kingdom of God.

This union in hope was not restricted to the Bible 1 louse.
Dr. Taylor, the Secretary immediately in charge of the
Society's affairs in the South, was very much interested in
1867 to receive a set of resolutions from the Lexington,
S. C., Auxiliary. From that state, which was the first to
raise the flag of secession came these welcome words : " \Ye
hail the American TJible Society as an instrument in the
hands of God to unite us as a people — brothers of a com-

286 CHRISTIAN FEDERATION [1861-1871

mon country and a common destiny — in all efforts for the
evangelisation of the country and the world." This state
ment which was repeated in spirit again and again in
Southern States may be said to emphasise the choicest fruit
of the federation of Christians which the Bible Society
represents, and of which the basis is need to combine for
the world's good all forces, both visible and latent, among
the servants of Jesus Christ. Wherever the Society has
worked its daily experiences have disclosed the replacing of
cold courtesy by cordial love, the growth of fraternity, the
concentration of powers, and a new efficiency in advancing
the Kingdom. In this feature of its organisation the So
ciety exhibits a method of Christian activity at once fruit
ful "and sane. Such a federation is possible only through
laying aside purely personal preferences and repugnances so
that the wish and the command of the Redeemer may have
richer fruition in the world. Such a federation of denomi
nations exerts an attraction upon unbelieving cynics whom
organic union of churches could not startle. One great re
sult most clearly brought into view through the stress of the
war period was, in short, the increase of a sense of brother
hood tending to actual union of all hearts through con
formity to the image of the Eirst Born among many
brethren.

CHAPTER XXXIV

THE PULSE OF LIFE

GENEALOGY enthralls many students of history. From
the point of view of the influence of parents upon the chil
dren and their descendants there is rich suggestion and a
certain satisfaction in tracing worthy characteristics, sturdy
purpose, and noble achievement which are linked together
from generation to generation. Though names are modified
or obliterated, though individuals are removed by death,
deeds remain belonging to the family as it follows its al
lotted course, unmistakably a unit from first to last.
Change, even deaths from year to year may affect the out
ward aspects of an institution such as the Bible Society ;
but like an influential old family its distinctive principles
and its permanent qualities remain through the years.

The services to the Bible Society of a number of distin
guished men were terminated by death during this period.
The Rev. Dr. Lyman P>eecher, who was a Secretary of the
Convention at which the Society wras organised, Rev. Dr.
Eliphalet Nott, Gen. J. G. Swift, the distinguished surgeon,
Dr. Valentine Mott, the Rev. Dr. John McDowell of Phila
delphia, renowned for his interest in Sunday Schools and
Bible classes in the Presbyterian Church, Rev. Dr. G. II.
Sayre, Rev. Dr. T. S. Biggs, and Chief Justice (N. J.)
Hornblovver, all of whom were members of the Convention
of 1816 (the last named being a Vice-President of the So
ciety), all passed a\vay in this period. Among other Vice-
Presidents of the Society, Judge McLean of the United
States Supreme Court, died in April, 1861. Vice-President
George Douglass of Long Island, died in February of the
same year.

When the close of the war brought the Society into di
rect relations again with its friends in the South, the Board
expressed its regrets in a fraternal memorial on the death

287

288 THE PULSE OF LIFE 1 1861-

during the war of Vice-Presidents Samuel Rhca of Ten
nessee, J; P>. O'Xeall of South Carolina, and C. C. Pinckney,
also of South Carolina. The wide range of the interests of
the Society was illustrated by the circumstance that the first
of these distinguished gentlemen was a Presbyterian, the
second a Baptist, while the third belonged to the Protestant
Episcopal Church.

One of the first of the friendly greetings received from
the South after the close of the war was a message of
confidence and good cheer from General John H. Cocke
of Virginia, Vice-President of the Society since 1844. He
died in 1866, greatly beloved, maintaining his interest in all
good things, with mental faculties wonderfully preserved to
extreme old age. Vice- President William 1>. Crosby, con
nected with the Society since 1816, and elected member of
the Board in 1830, died in 1865, leaving a vacant niche hard
to fill.

In 1867 the Hon. J. H. Lumpkin, Chief Justice of Geor
gia, and the Hon. J. A. Wright, once minister of the United
States to the Court of Prussia, both Vice-Presidents of the
Society, passed away. In the same year Vice-President
Freeborn Garretson, and Vice-President Heman Lincoln of
Massachusetts died. Mr. Lincoln was a warm friend of
the Society wdio had held the office of President of the Bap
tist Home Missionary Society and had filled other positions
of responsibility in connection with Baptist missionary op
erations Vice- President Peletiah Perit died in 1864, and
Vice-President Benjamin L. Swan in 1866.

In April, 1868, Vice-President W. \V. Elsworth, finished
his course. The son of the Hon. Oliver Elsworth, second
Chief Justice of the United States, he was worthy of his
distinguished parent. lie was an earnest supporter of the
Society from its organisation, and was elected Vice-Presi
dent in 1848. Another Vice-President of long and well-
tried fidelity was Thomas Cock, M.D., of the Society of
Friends. He became a member of the Board of Managers
in 1834, and in 1839 was made a Vice-President. The
Hoard of Managers mourned the removal of one so endeared
to them by his many virtues, his gentle manners, and his
earnest Christian spirit.

1871] SPIRITUAL VALUE OF TROUBLE 289

In 1869 the Board suffered loss again in the death of
Henry Fisher, Esq., for sixteen years Assistant Treasurer
of the Society. His complicated duties during the Civil
\Yar were performed with indefatigahle industry, a zeal
which absorhed him, and a love for the work which made
it completely successful. Millions of dollars passed safely
through his hands during his long incumbency. He \vas
prompt, earnest, exact, conscientious and thoroughly conse
crated — an honour to the Protestant Episcopal Church of
which he was a member. A. L. Taylor, Esq., \vas elected
Assistant Treasurer in November, 1869.

The services of the Rev. Samuel L. Tuttle entitle his name
to a place in this record of the great family of the Society,
although he had not official relation to the Board. Ap
pointed in 1863 assistant to the Secretaries, he performed
duties assigned to him from day to day. He was prudent,
tactful, energetic, and worked in the office up to almost the
last day of his life, the i6th of April, 1866. During the
Civil War it had not seemed necessary to employ three
Secretaries at the Bible House, but on Air. Turtle's death
the intricate questions arising from the reorganisation of
the Society's work in the Southern States made it necessary
to appoint a third Secretary, and in 1866 the Rev. T. Rals
ton Smith, D.D., well-known as an esteemed pastor in
New York City, was called to office of Corresponding Sec
retary.

As James Russell Lowell observes, " In times of struggle
\ve have our Sinais and our talks with God in the bush."
This spiritual value of trials must be recognised as a main
element of the permanence of the Society's eminence.
Throughout the period from 1861 to 1871 the Secretaries
of the Society were spurred to utmost activity. They were
under strain, whether at the desk, or walking, or eating, or
.dreaming in sleep. The growth of population through its
natural increase as well as through immigration, demanded
immediate discovery of new methods of distribution, for
as the nation grew the work must grow. The completion
of the Pacific railroad in 1869 brought a renewal of pres
sure upon the men at the Bible House. It laid upon the
Society new responsibilities, for in the vast regions thus

290 THE PULSE OF LIFE [1861-

opcned villages and towns were springing up in a night
like mushrooms. Every difficult phase of the steady in
crease of demands from the home field caused the Bible
House to throb with life and activity.

The distinctiveness of the Society's bearing under such
strains in some degree depends upon continuity in the office
of Secretary. As has been noted, Secretary Brigham had
the advantage of the counsel and advice of Secretary Miinor
for several years, and in the same way Secretary Hoklich,
the senior Secretary of the Society after Dr. Brigham's
death, could look back with satisfaction to twelve years
of association with Dr. Brigham in his work as Correspond
ing Secretary. In the whole of the first fifty years of the
Society's history one or the other of these three men had
direct connection in some way with almost every important
action. To take the place of Secretary Brigham the Rev.
W. J. R. Taylor, D.D., of Philadelphia, was elected Cor
responding Secretary. Dr. Taylor was an able and effi
cient man whose talents gave him special power in deal
ing with the many problems presenting themselves in the
Southern States at this time, but after eight years of serv
ice he felt obliged to return to the pastorate and resigned in
October, 1869, to become pastor of the First Reformed
Church of Newark, N. J.

On the resignation of Secretary Taylor the Board di
vided the whole work of the Society into two sections, that
at home and that abroad ; placing Secretary Hoklich in
care of the work abroad and Secretary Smith in charge of
the work at home. By this means responsibility for each
branch of the work would be concentrated under the man
agement, it being understood that an assistant to the Sec
retaries, and additional clerical aid as necessary, would be
provided. The kindly service of the Society for the army
was a general missionary enterprise as truly as that which,
commanded the services of William Carey or Gordon Hall.
So the Secretaries as well as the Board were fully prepared
to press forward the Bible cause in the home land.

The members of the Board were always close to the pub
lic affairs of the country. In 1865 they were smitten when
the bullet of a madman killed President Lincoln, one of

1871] AUXILIARIES ALERT AND ACTIVE 291

the Life Directors of the Society ; and they passed a resolu
tion of grief, for he had been struck down at the very
fruition of the policies in which he had led the nation. In
1869 when General Grant took his seat as President of the
United States in Lincoln's place, the Board of Managers
presented him with a finely bound Bible. Three Vice-
Presidents of the Society visited him with this book: Vice-
President Salmon P. Chase, Chief-Justice of the United
States, Vice-President Frederick T. Frelinghuysen, United
States Senator, and Vice-President George Hay Stuart, the
President of that great Commission which had co-operated
with the Society in the supply of the armies which had been
like pieces on a great chess-board in the hands of General
Grant. It was immediately after General Grant's inaugu
ration that the simple ceremony took place, and the book
was accepted with kindly words of appreciation.

As the life of a living, growing body throbs in all its
members, the Auxiliary Societies, too, showed themselves
alert and active in these critical years. Each was inde
pendent in affairs of its own field. But through the fel
lowship of co-operation with the body which they regarded
as a " parent Society " they were all participants in its
gains — and its pains. During all of this period the Auxil
iaries were stimulated to great efforts and many of them
reached a degree of efficiency which was amazing.

In the South the Auxiliaries for some time after the war
were offered help from New York to do their allotted work.
To be put in general circulation in Georgia the Society in
1867 granted over 15,000 volumes to the Auxiliary Societies
of that state. Thirty-three Auxiliaries in Alabama organ
ised or revived by the Society's Agents were supplied with
books for sale and free distribution. In Mississippi it was
not possible to revive the old Auxiliaries so speedily, only
seven having taken up active work during the first year
after the war. In Louisiana the Southwestern Bible So
ciety of New Orleans threw good-will and energy into its
general work. Its principal sources of supply were obliter
ated during the war, and in 1867 the Pennsylvania Bible
Society made a special contribution in order to have the
Board send 6,000 Testaments and Psalms for distribution

2Q2 THE PULSE OE LIFE [1861-

among the poor of New Orleans. In Arkansas no traces
could be found of the former Auxiliary Bible Societies, and
in 1867 about $6,000 worth of Bibles were sent to the state
to be distributed by volunteer Agents who worked without
pay during the general re-supply among the most destitute
of the people. In Missouri, also, the Auxiliary Societies
not being re-organised for a long time, the Society had to
make many grants of books for distribution by local com
mittees. In Tennessee, which was early occupied by the
national troops, signs of recovery of ability appeared soon
after the close of the war ; yet here, too, it was clear that
gratuitous help of the national Society would be necessary
for some years. The sure response of these Societies to
the measures adopted by the Board was well represented by
the comment of the Louisville, Kentucky, Bible Society upon
the decision to supply soldiers of both armies. " No bet
ter method could be adopted," it said, " for quieting the
billows now raging over our once happy land than to let
the voice of Him who stilled the storm when upon earth,
be heard through His word."

In the Northern States the situation of the Auxiliary
Societies was very different. In Ohio fifty-three Auxiliar
ies were able to do something, but only twelve of them com
menced resupplying their fields immediately after the de
cision of 1866. A considerable number of " Sunday School
Branches " of the Auxiliaries helped in the work. In Illi
nois Auxiliaries suffered less from the distractions of war
time than in many other states. In 1861 the Auxiliaries
and their branches in Illinois made a total of 1225. Fifteen
hundred ministers co-operated. In the year ending March
31, 1867, Illinois Auxiliaries remitted to the national So
ciety somewhat more than $82,000. About half of this
sum was in payment for books used by the Auxiliaries in
their local work, and donations for the general work of
the national Society made up the rest. Only the Auxiliar
ies in New York State did more in that year than those
of Illinois in the way of remittances to the Society. The
New York Bible Society sustained an arduous work of
supplying Scriptures to the Army and Navy, paying the
whole expense of the distribution and part of the cost of

1871] THE GENERAL SUPPLY 293

the books. It received during the four years of war grants
of books from the National Society valued at $37,684.
These grants were made because the work was really na
tional in character. The New York Female Bible Society,
busy with its special work of sending women to read the
Bible to the poor, contributed $1,008 to the general Society.
The Massachusetts Auxiliary Bible Society during this
same period made a generous donation of $5,000, specially
designated for the publication of the Arabic Bible.

In the midst of this period of unaccustomed labors, the
Annual Meeting in 1866 decided to mark the beginning
of a new half century by undertaking a third General
Supply of destitute families throughout the United States.
It was a great undertaking, but it was energetically carried
out. In 1871 the Society reported that 2,990,119 families
had been visited, 228,807 families supplied, and 218,839
persons not included in the destitute families. By 1870 it
had learned that the vast regions newly opened to settle
ment since the war, could not, in the nature of tilings, be
fully supplied by any merely local effort. Direct dis
tribution by the Society must supplement such efforts. This
necessity increased the labour, the cost and the duration
of the General Supply ordered in 1866.

The Auxiliaries in general were, as ever, eyes and arms
and nerves of touch to the Society in all parts of the home
field. In 1870 the reports of the Society ceased to contain
a separate department of work for the South, the wounds
having partly healed which had made such a department
desirable. At that time there were 7,125 Auxiliaries and
Branches in the United States. That a goodly number of
these local societies were doing the work which falls to
members of the Society is clear. For these local Societies
had in the field 194 County Agents with no paid colporteurs
and 24,949 unpaid Bible distributers seeking the destitute
willing to be supplied with Scriptures. None can deny the
influence upon the nation of such a force circulating God's
word.

Because the poor are handicapped in the struggle for a
worthy life, it seems that God must have a special bless
ing for those, like the Society's Agents, who are occupied

294 THE PULSE OF LIFE [1861-

in helping the execution of His purpose for the poor. The
people with whom the Agents dealt were frequently half-
pagan, ignorant people. Some poured a pan of dish water
on the Agent to drive him away, and some treasured a verse
from the Bible as a revelation and a marvel. Christians of
education and intellect, advised with the Agent, imparting
refreshment and encouragement. As a result of making
known his experiences among the destitute, a by-product,
so to speak, of the Agent's work, too, was promotion of a
spirit of fraternity among the churches of different de
nominations and between members of the church when
drawn into a common line of labour. The Society had in
1870 about forty Agents in the home field aided by twenty
Assistants. They were established in every state of the
Union excepting those in which Auxiliary Societies main
tained agents of their own. The Agents were men of devo
tion, activity, experience and insight. Upon them the Man
agers at the Bible House relied for tireless labours in be
half of individuals destitute of the Scriptures. The Agent
was the voice of the Board, reaching to needy people in
the most destitute parts of the country. To the lonely
homesteader the Agent's presence and kindly sympathy was
like a breeze from the mountains in a sultry valley.

The Agents superintended the work of the Auxiliary
Societies, animated IMble distribution, audited accounts, gave
lessons in book-keeping, and distributed Scriptures from
shack to shack in thinly settled regions where Auxiliaries
had little reach. Within their own districts they watched
over all the interests of the Society ; as an incidental mat
ter trying, as far as possible, to increase contributions. The
essential in the character of the Agent was likeness to
Jesus Christ in utter devotion to the purpose of the Al
mighty, and in immeasurable sympathy for all the suffering.

Among the more ignorant settlers in the new districts
commercial book agents acted on the theory that people wish
to be deceived, selling gaudily bound Bibles on the instal
ment plan to poor people who paid ten dollars or more for
the book. Sympathy was at once aroused for those duped
by such men. A negro in Kentucky exhibited with some

1871] TENSION IN BIBLE WORK ABROAD 295

pride one of these Bibles to an Agent of the Society, hav
ing bought it for twelve dollars. The Agent asked the
negro if he could read it. " No," he said. " Is there any
body in your family who can read it?" "Nary one," he
said. "Then what are you going to do with the Bible?"
" Oh," he said, " my little Alary is being teached to read,
and when she kirns how she'll read it to us." It was an
unmixed pleasure to offer to people so eager to get the Bible
a clearly printed, neatly bound volume for fifty cents, giv
ing at the same time comfortable words of sympathy along
with the Book of all comfort.

As a matter of economy, in i86<) the Society's Agents
were withdrawn from Vermont, Virginia, and Rhode Island.
In each of these states a strong Society seemed well fitted to
handle by itself the needs of the state. This was really
a piece of optimism concerning Auxiliaries which was hardly
justified by experience. Of these three Societies the Vir
ginia Bible Society alone proved itself able to work with
out aid from an Agent supported by the National organisa
tion.

This chapter opened with a list of changes in the person
nel of the Society. The facts set forth impress one with
the solid permanence of the life of the organisation. By
the grace of God the Society's initiative and activity per
sist although its membership is mortal. Needs of the home
land in no way diminished appeals to the Society from for
eign lands. We shall see in other chapters that this period
was also a time of tension abroad. In the year ending
March 31, 1868, more books were provided for the foreign
field than the whole number issued from the Bible House
in any single year of the first thirty-five years of the Bible
Society's work.

While the Bible House was occupied seemingly to its full
capacity with the publication of Scriptures for use at home,
it wras preparing plates for several important versions to be
used abroad. In 1864 while demands from the home land
upon the Society seemed to absorb the whole of its resources,
the Board was so moved by the destitution of millions in
South America that it appointed a permanent Agent in the

296 THE PULSE OF LIFE [1861-1871

region now known as Argentina. This was the beginning
of the fruitful La Plata Agency of the Society, and in fact
a turning point of the Society's enterprises followed by
efficient and energetic action in South America not before
known.

CHAPTER XXXV

THE ONE TALENT HID

THE tendency of Bible ideas, words and phrases to take
a permanent place in the language is of exceeding interest.
Because of this tendency all is an understatement that can
be said of the Bible as a mine of wisdom. The Book unob
trusively moulds thought and surrounds the reader with a
pure atmosphere which nourishes spiritual growth. It is a
precious treasure which the humblest may use, like the talent
in the parable, for the increase of his intellectual and
spiritual capital. Merely as a civilising agency Bible distri
bution, for this reason, should commend itself to the support
of all.

For various reasons a good many people in their treat
ment of the Bible follow the notorious example of the man
who buried his talent in a napkin. Some make the reading
of the Bible impracticable by giving it ponderous weight and
massive binding ; some make the reading by common people
a crime which merits anathema ; some, without going so far
as to punish readers, see to it that the book can only be
found wrapped in gorgeously embroidered cloths on the
altar of a church, and some, though free from such restric
tions, cordially neglect reading the book that lies open in
their hands. The one possession which might make all rich
is buried out of reach.

What the Society has done in some of the countries where
the Bible is neglected or hidden is an essential part of this
story. The undertaking has been simple conformity to the
purpose of the Master, in the same way that the builder of a
palace tries exactly to embody in stone the thought and plan
of the architect. American Baptist Missionaries in Sweden,
and Methodist Episcopal missions in Norway and in Den
mark asked and received during this period $5,150 for Bible
distribution. In Denmark the use of a grant of $650 illus-

297

298 THE ONE TALENT HID [1861-

trates how widely even a small sum may serve the desti
tute. Scriptures bought with the grant were sold at eost
or less whenever possible. \Yith the proceeds of sales more
books were bought and sent on " missionary excursions."
After live years the missionaries through this grant had
circulated 8,686 volumes, and their expectation of typical
fruits from the sowing was as well grounded as that of the
farmer who expects to reap wheat when he has sown wheat.

During the period of the Civil War (1861-1871), the
Methodist Episcopal Mission at Bremen, Germany, received
grants amounting to $52,947, applied to making three sets of
plates of the German L>ible and two of the New Testament,
and printing and distributing the books among the people.
The scarcity of Scriptures among the common people, and
the advantage of supplying the Book to emigrants to the
United States at the port of embarcation, made this work
like the despatch of shiploads of provisions for famishing
families in Ireland and Russia. Bible distribution was op
posed by Roman Catholic priests just as people in India op
pose the health officers who try to save them from the
plague. But Dr. Jacobi, the missionary, remarked with
satisfaction, "The old man (the Tope) will surely be con
vinced that Protestantism has a much greater force than he
imagines."

In 1864-65 Prussia made war on Denmark over Schleswig-
Holstein; in 1866 on Austria, and in 1870 on France. In
all these wars our little Testaments went to barrack and
hospital. One wounded man said to the colporteur who
gave him a Testament: " \\hat on earth shall I do with
it?" But a few weeks later, when he was leaving to re
join his regiment, he said to the colporteur, " I am studying
the little book in earnest, and thank you for it." In the war
with France a German lady had to give up her only son for
service in the Army. Six weeks later, the battle at Sedan
which overthrew the Emperor Napoleon bereaved this lady.
Comfort came to her like a voice from the spirit world, how
ever, when in her dead boy's effects she found a little Testa
ment given by the " American Bible Society " on which
were marks of use such as showed that her son had lived in
harmony of purpose with her and with her God.

1 871] AID TO FRANCE AND RUSSIA 299

In Russia during this period 20,000 Testaments were
printed at the expense of the Society by the Committee
which supplied the destitute Esthonians of the district of
Reval. Later on money was sent to the Committee at St.
Petersburg to buy from the depot of the Holy Synod Rus
sian Xcw Testaments for exiles in Siberia. When the
books arrived at Xikolaievsk ( about 4,000 miles from St.
Petersburg), they were sent up the Amur River 500 miles,
and rejoiced the hearts of the poor exiles. Grants for the
Russian work during these nine years amounted to $17,497.
Cood will in the name of the Lord knows no limitations.

In I "ranee at that time any failure to use the Bible was
due, perhaps, less to government restrictions than to fear of
the Church hierarchy. Here is a reason, if one must
needs be given, for the Society's labours in such lands.
( )ld friendship for France, too, was a special reason for aid
rendered to .the French Bible Societies. The French Prot
estant .Bible Society, organised in 1818, in 1863 changed its
constitution and began to publish an imperfect version of
the Bible. Upon tins a minority of its managers resigned
and in i8C>4 united with the French and Foreign Bible So
ciety forming a new body called the Bible Society of France.
To this new organisation the American Bible Society gave
some $13,000 in this period. The money was used in print
ing and distributing Scriptures in France. In 1870 the
French Society reported that in the six years since its or
ganisation it had put in circulation 60,000 volumes.

The Board of Managers in 1863 made a re-statement of
its policy toward the nations more or less destitute of the
Bible. It declared that while the Society is under obligation
to enter every open field where American missionaries ask
its aid, America, excepting Canada, is its special field. Latin
America, including Mexico, Central America and South
America with their island dependencies, should be supplied
with all diligence in addition to the vast home field. From
1 86 1 to 1871 the expenditures in Latin America amounted
to $10,486, besides grants of books.

Mexico both attracted and repelled efforts to supply its
people with Scriptures. Until 1861 the Rev. James Hickey,
a Baptist minister in Texas, had been actively distributing

300 THE ONE TALENT HID [1861-

Scriptures and tracts among Mexicans near the Rio Grande.
When the Civil War blazed up, hoping to continue his work
unhampered by the crisis in the United States, he removed
from Texas to Monterey in Mexico. There he received oc
casional grants of Scriptures from the Society and put some
nine hundred volumes into circulation chiefly by sale.

The earnestness and devotion of Air. Hickey led the Board
in the latter part of 1862 to appoint him Agent of the So
ciety for Mexico, expecting him to live in Mexico City.
Meanwhile, England, France, and Spain had intervened to
regulate the chaos in Mexico, and had disagreed as to the
measures to be adopted. France was left to act alone. In
June, 1863, French troops captured Mexico City, to the
great joy of the clerical party, which opposed Juarez. The
country was full of righting men — partisans of the French,
partisans of Juarez, and plain, unblushing bandits: but Mr.
llickey was not afraid to travel. His adventurous ex
cursions took him into the states of Tamaulipas, Zacatecas
and San Luis Potosi. The marvel of his ventures was that
everywhere he aroused interest in the Bible which he car
ried. But the roads, he said, were " such as to smash any
wagon not made of spring steel."

The fame of the Bible spread through the country. Mr.
Hickey wrote in 1865: " So soon as the Heavenly Father
sends peace I propose to send four colporteurs into Tamaul
ipas to distribute Scriptures in every town and ranch in the
state." But this was not to be. Again and again Mr.
Hickey had to make the difficult journey of some two hun
dred miles from Monterey to Brownsville because there was
no other way of securing the books sent from New York.
Early in 1866 he suffered from exposure on a journey for
books, and was laid up with pneumonia at Brownsville for
nearly two weeks. He went to work again while still far
from well, and toward the close of the year he took the same
hard journey again to replenish his stock. Illness followed
his arrival at Brownsville, and on the loth- of December,
1866, this brave servant of Christ rested from his arduous
labours.

The impression of such a life on the country was last
ing. General Lew Wallace later passed through the region

i8;il THE BIP.LE AMONG MEXICANS 30:

where Mr. llickey had laboured and was surprised at the
profound respect in which the people held his memory.
The reason of this respect was partly the high character of
the man, but chiefly the quality of the Book. It quickly won
the love of the soul-hungry people. One Mexican on hear
ing some verses read, instantly said to his wife, " That is a
book to open a man's eyes; buy it!" And she did. "Is
not my word like as a fire, saith the Lord, and like a ham
mer that breaketh the rock in pieces ? "

Upon the death of Mr. Hickey, Mr. Thomas Westrup
was appointed agent of the Society. He was prepared for
the work by missionary labour on the border and well-
seasoned for its extraordinary demands. The obstructive-
ness of the priests whose cause seemed to be looking up
since the advent of the Emperor Maximilian, was less of a
hindrance to Bible work than the outlawry which flourished
under cover of resistance to the French invasion.

Maximilian's exotic Empire was doomed, however, as
soon as the end of civil war in the United States permitted
Mr. Seward, with some hundreds of thousands of seasoned
soldiers at hand, to speak seriously to Napoleon III concern
ing French armies in Mexico. Early in 1867 Razaine and
his troops embarked for France. The tragedy of Oueretaro,
June Hjth, 1867, was the natural consequence — a shock to
the whole civilised world, a cup of gall to Napoleon III, and
an ominous beginning for the new freedom of Mexico.

The clerical party was much enfeebled by this catastrophe.
Local officials, Mr. Westrup wrote, declared that the new
constitution made Bible burning illegal. In the three years
of his agency he put in circulation about 8,000 volumes of
Scripture in Tamaulipas, Nueva Leon, Chihuahua, Dur-
ango, San Luis Potosi, and Zacatecas. The proceeds of
sales in 1869 were $1,100 — good evidence that the book was
wanted by the people. There were little groups of Bible
readers in many places, and the Bible could be seen to be
changing brutes into men. Colonel Rodriguez in Tamaul
ipas described the revolution wrought in his own life by
saying, " I have not changed my profession. I have only
changed my commanding Officer ! " Miss Melinda Rankin,
always vigorously at work, reported converts to New Testa-

302 THE ONE TALENT HID [1861-

ment Christianity of all ages — an old woman of sixty-nine
and a boy of thirteen — in the place in Nueva Leon where
she now laboured. Two men who had threatened to shoot
any one who should bring Bibles to their village were found
among the humble students of the words of Jesus Christ.

By the beginning of 1870 the new order of things in
Mexico led to the opening of missions by different denomina
tions. The Society .made grants of books and money, 500
Bibles to the Protestant Episcopal Mission, $2,750 to the
American and Foreign Christian Union for Rev. H. C.
Riley, its missionary in Mexico City. The missions found
instant response among Bible readers, particularly in the
six states named above, where to this day are found a large
proportion of the adherents of Protestant missions. Mr.
Westrup had taken part in laying foundations, he now
yearned for a share in the building. In iS/o he resigned
in order to enter the service of the American Baptist Home
Mission Society, in Northern Mexico.

Entreaties of the .American Missionaries in Buenos Aires
decided the Board in 1864 to appoint an Agent for that part
of South .America. Mr. Andrew Milne, a young Scot living
in Buenos .Vires, was selected for the post. "With a delicate
sensitiveness to comity, the Board instructed him to estab
lish the Agency in Montevideo because the British and For
eign Bible Society had labourers in I'uenos /Vires.

Mr. Milne was connected with a mercantile house, but
hours that were his own he had long devoted to missionary
effort among the people of the city. He gladly began serv
ice of the Society in June, 1864. From his appointment
dates the opening of serious work of the Society in behalf
of the Spanish speaking parts of the southern continent.
The vision of a Christian worker always outruns his imme
diate surroundings. While Mr. Milne in 1864 was advised
to begin his efforts in Entre Rios, one of the fourteen prov
inces of Argentina, he foresaw that one day the Bible would
nourish the lives of divers tribes and nations, from the At
lantic to the Pacific and from the equator to Cape Horn.

Since by this time the British and Foreign Bible Society
had opened a depository in Montevideo, Mr. Milne, to avoid
appearance of rivalry, established his agency at Rosario, on

1871] DR. TRUMBULL IX VALPARAISO 303

the Parana River. From Rosario Mr. George Schmidt, an
energetic colporteur, was sent to explore the northern coun
try, lie visited many of the chief cities, besides the villages
and ranches as far west as Jujuy in the skirts of the Andes,
some seven hundred miles from Rosario.

When the work of the Agency began in 1864 the Bible
was the rarest of books in that region. IJy slow and patient
methods Mr. Milne and one or two colporteurs in the first
six years of his agency had placed in the hands of the people
of many towns and villages as far as to the borders of
Brazil and of Peru a total of about 25,000 copies of Scrip
ture. The wide dispersion of these books prepared the way
somewhat for missions of many denominations. A salient
feature of this work was the ceaseless and even virulent
opposition of leading men of the church which for three cen
turies had dealt with the nation as though its existence de
pended upon keeping the book inactive. This opposition in
turn brought to light evidences that the Bible frees men's
minds from arbitrary control. At a little mud ranch in the
country which seemed hardly worth a visit, Mr. Milne in
18/0 discovered a refined lady who said, " I have a IHble al
ready ; it is worth more to me than an ounce of pure gold !
The priest ordered me to give it up to be burned but I told
him I would as soon think of burning my clothes! "

To Peru the Society sent Scriptures through Rev. Mr.
McKim, missionary of the American and Foreign Chris
tian Union at Lima. Chile, settled by the Spanish in 1541,
lies between the crest of the Andes and the Pacific Ocean,
and the Society treated its needs as a problem separate from
those of Mr. Milne's Agency. Rev. Dr. Truinbull at Val
paraiso completed in 1871 his twenty-fifth year of hearty
co-operation with the Society. During this period the Val
paraiso Bible Society, organised in 1862, with Dr. Trumbull
as president, pressed Bible distribution among English, Ger
mans, and Americans in the city and reached out among
Chilians in adjoining districts. During seven years the Val
paraiso Bible Society in 1870 had put in circulation 7,000
copies of the Scriptures.

In regard to Central America, and Colombia then known
as New Granada, little can be said except that the Board in-

304 THE ONE TALENT HID [1861-

tently watched for opportunities of Bible distribution while
the unrest of revolution bubbled and boiled like a witch's
mixture in a cauldron. In 1863 the Rev. W. H. Norris was
appointed Agent of the Society for Central America and
New Granada. But early in 1864 Mr. Xorris' health gave
way, and he was obliged to resign. The Rev. W. H. Gulick
of Caraccas, Venezuela, and Air. F. Hicks of Panama, in
dependent and self-supporting missionaries, were now fur
nished Scriptures for distribution. In 1866 the agency of
the British Society was withdrawn from Bogota and the
American Society took steps to aid American missionaries
in Colombia as it had always done. In the West Indies the
work of the Society, during this period, was still rather de
sultory in character, books being sent in small parcels to
missionaries or other Christian workers in Cuba, Hayti, and
Porto Rico ; but nothing being attempted in the way of a
permanent Agency for the islands.

When American missionaries began to establish them
selves, far south of the eastward straggling islands, in
Brazil, they were glad to handle Scriptures for the Society.
Rev. Mr. Simonton and Rev. Mr. Black ford of the Pres
byterian Mission in Rio Janeiro, during this period em
ployed colporteurs at the expense of the Society. Farther
north the Rev. R. Holden of the American Protestant Epis
copal Mission at Para, each year after his arrival received
grants from the Society, employed colporteurs and himself
travelled widely to distribute Scriptures until 1864. Then
he was formally appointed Agent of the Society. The
Board was rather surprised, however, to learn that before
the notice of this appointment had reached Mr. Holden he
had been engaged as Agent of the British and Foreign Bible
Society.

In all such distributions the Bible permanently wins the
hearts of some. Here and there people were reading the
Bibles bought from Mr. Fletcher, the former Agent of the
Society. Mr. Black ford wrote joyfully of results of the sow
er's work that came under his own eyes. The story of a con
vert at Sao Paulo suggests that in many places the Bible even
now may be working silently and imperceptibly. A very old
woman rebuked this man when a boy for noisy play on

1871] RESTRICTIONS REMOVED IX ITALY 305

Sunday, and read to him out of a book the command to keen
the Sabbath holy. She also let him read in the book, which
was the Bible. When he grew up he sent to Rio Janeiro to
get a Bible ; but could not, for the price was twenty-live dol
lars. Some time afterward the teacher of the public school
gave him a Spanish Bible, printed by the American Bible
Society in 1824. The man learned Spanish solely for the
purpose of reading the Bible. For twenty years that man
had privately studied the Bible, and when the missionaries
arrived in Sao Paulo he was entirely ready to make public
profession of his faith in Jesus Christ. Air. Blackford
wrote in this connection : " Results may seem small as
compared with the outlay, but such facts as this prove the
work to be worth while ! " The sincerity of the Brazilian
lovers of the Bible received further testimony when the little
church at Rio Janeiro out of its poverty sent a donation of
twenty-rive dollars to the Society as a token of the gratitude
of its members.

At the beginning of this period a few governments of Eu
rope served the clergy, guarding the Bible with the sword.
In the Papal states as wrell as the small countries in central
and Southern. Italy, the police constantly watched against
the admission of Bibles. Even an American who went to
Rome would have his Bible taken from him as soon as he
crossed the line. A species of madness seemed to possess
the authorities. After Italy became one united kingdom
the police restrictions were removed excepting in the Papal
states and the Society speedily took advantage of this situa
tion. The Rev. William Clark, formerly a missionary in
Turkey, was sent by the American and Foreign- Christian
Union to Milan and the Society furnished him with money
to circulate Scriptures. It also made grants to the Geneva
Italian Committee whose work in the north of Italy it had
long aided, and to a Waldensian Committee in Florence,
first to print Scriptures, and finally for making a complete
set of plates of the Bible in Italian to be used at Florence.
The grants of the Society for printing and distributing
Scriptures in Italy through these channels amounted during
the nine years to $24,240. During this period the British
and Foreign Bible Society and the Scottish National Bible

3o6 THE ONE TALENT HID [1861-

Society were working with great vigour in all parts of Italy
and the American Society refrained from placing colpor
teurs in the field.

Toward the close of this period the great Vatican Council
assembled in order to declare as a dogma of the church the
infallibility of the Tope in matters of spiritual guidance.
On the 1 8th of July, 18/0, this dogma of infallibility was
proclaimed with all the pomp and ceremony of which the
ancient church of Rome is capable. On the same day
France, whose troops were protecting Rome against liberty,
declared war against Germany. Within two months the
French Empire had been overthrown ; her troops were re
called from Rome, and Italians occupied the city, and
temporal sovereignty was wrenched from the paralysing grip
of the church !

In Spain almost more than in Italy arbitrary power for
bade the people's access to the book that gives men under
standing. Worthy men were imprisoned for reading it.
After the revolution of September, 1868, when Queen Isa
bella fled the country and Marshal Serrano was installed at
Madrid as Regent, freedom seemed to have displaced
tyranny even in the domain of religion. The American and
Foreign Christian Union established a mission at Seville
and the .Hoard granted it 5,000 copies of Scripture. But the
Spanish Custom J louse stopped the books. By the inter
vention of General Daniel E. Sickles, the American Min
ister, the Custom House released the books one full year
after their seizure. The boxes of Bibles were viewed by
every official " with deepest malignity," wrote Rev. II. C.
Hall at Seville, for they contained the first Bibles, perhaps,
ever regularly passed by that Custom House. As we shall
later see, they were not the last.

Thus the treasure long hidden has been gradually put into
use among multitudes. The word " talent " used to be a
Greek word of money value. Its adoption into many lan
guages with a nobler meaning reveals the wide dissemina
tion of the Bible, where our Saviour's parable attached to
the old Greek word the sense of an endowment or gift avail
able for success in life. The Bible itself is such an endow-

18711 EFFORT APPEALS TO SMYPATHY 307

ment, for neglect of which' none can escape accountability.
Hence the effort to give the book free course in lands where
men have concealed or neglected it appeals to the sympathy
and support of every true Christian.

CHAPTER XXXVI

PEOPLES WHO KNOW NOT GOD'S LAW

"WARM as was interest in the nations among whom the
Bible was hid frum the common people, sympathy and
yearning to help could not hut go out toward the millions
of pagans and Mohammedans whose lands seemed to form
a sort of anarchistic reservation on the earth, where the law
of God was not known.

India, one of the countries of this class, had held for
many years a place in the hearts of the members of the So
ciety. The aid of the Society was given to American Mis
sionaries in Ceylon, at Madura, and in the Arcot region of
South India, in Lucknow and the Lodiana district in North
India. The languages of India in which Scriptures were
published or circulated during this period at the expense
of the Society were Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Uriye, Urdu,
Hindi and Panjabi. The cost to the Society of printing and
distribution from 1861 to 1871 in different parts of the
country amounted to $57,859.

In 1866 the Rev. Dr. J. P. Chamberlain of the Reformed
Church Arcot Mission, made a tour for the Society in the
territories of the Nizam of Hyderabad, little known because
of the surly fanaticism of the population outside of the
great cities. The tour was an exploration, an opportunity
for distribution of Scriptures among all classes, and an un
dertaking adventurous and even dangerous to the devoted
missionary. Many of the people in their ignorance could
not make out the sense of a Gospel unless some one ex
pounded it. One man in South India, after buying a por
tion brought it back because he said " it had offended his
household god." Another one liked the little book so much
that he came to ask the missionaries if he ought not to offer
it worship. On the other hand there was some intelligent

308

1861-1871.! PRINTING EOR MICRONESIA 309

use of the books. An inspector of police, a Brahmin, said
to a missionary: "There never was a being like Jesus
Christ, and never a book like the Bible. Though 1 have
eaten a meal, if 1 have not read my Bible I am hungry still."

In Siam with money furnished by the Society, the Presby
terian Mission Press at Bangkok printed during this period
29,000 copies of Scripture, including the four Gospels, St.
Paul's Epistles to the Romans and to the Corinthians, Gene
sis, Exodus, and Leviticus, all in separate portions gener
ously distributed.

An atmosphere of romance hangs about the palm-clad
atolls of Micronesia. I Hit the missionaries of the Ameri
can Board found little o.f romance when they visited one is
land after another where the unclothed people were sunk in
ignorance, without an idea of reading or writing, or of an
alphabet. During this period, however, the Society printed
Scriptures pretty continuously at the Bible I louse and at
Honolulu for use in these little islands ; schools having pre
pared the natives to read. The English alphabet was used,
as in the J lawaiian Islands, for writing the different lan
guages. Portions of Scripture for the Marshall Islands,
for the Gilbert Islands, and for Kusaie (Strong's Island)
were printed at Honolulu at the expense of the Society,
and a large family Bible in Hawaiian as well as a New
Testament in 1 lawaiian and English in parallel columns
were printed at the Bible House in New York. There was
large demand for both of these last named books, although
it was the opinion of the missionaries that the natives of the
Hawaiian Islands, at least, would gradually lose their
identity by mingling with foreigners wdio were taking up
their abode in those charming surroundings.

The acceptance of the Scriptures in Micronesia is shown
in a letter of Rev. Air. Snow of the American Board's Mis
sion in Kusaie, who had been absent from the island for
many months, leaving the people the Gospel of St. John for
their instruction. ( )n his return in 1864, lie found that
some forty persons had made up their minds during his
absence to surrender to Jesus Christ. In a Sunday School
were 118 pupils of all ages in twelve classes studying the
Gospels. Many had committed the Gospel of St. John to

3io PEOPLES WHO KNOW NOT [1861-

memory. Mr. Snow brought them the Gospel of St. Mat
thew, just printed. The people were over joyed. In groups
of three or four that evening they were lying around their
little lamps reading the new book. The Society could not
but hasten the printing of the Bible for people giving it such
a welcome.

In China, as a thorn in the flesh of translators, the " term
question " 1 persisted because missionaries were unable to
unite upon a Chinese term for " God." A compromise usu
ally permitted the printing of either Shangti or Shcii in edi
tions of the Bible for the missions which respectively re
quired either term. By Dr. Schereschewski a curious ex
periment was made in his Mandarin Old Testament. He in
troduced the term Ticuchn, supported by the fact that it had
been used by Roman Catholic missionaries for two hundred
years. It never came into use, however, in Protestant mis
sions, and it did not appear in the Mandarin Old Testa
ment after 1899.

Bible translation at the expense of the Society steadily
went on, driven by the needs of China's vast multitudes.
The Board had recognised in 1852 a committee composed of
Bishop Boone and Rev. Dr. \l. C. Bridgman, once members
of the " Delegates'" Committee, Rev. Dr. Culbertson, Rev.
Dr. Jenkins, of Shanghai, and Rev. Dr. McClay of Euchow,
as a Committee of translation with power to publish the
Bible when completed. The version of the New Testament
prepared by this American Committee was published in
1854 and that of the whole Bible in 1862. Dr. Bridgman
did not live to complete the work, passing from this life in
1 86 1. Dr. Culbertson had the privilege of seeing the work
finished before he died in 1862. This version was more
faithful in rendering the original, but less elegant in Chinese
style than the Delegates' version. It had a very large circu
lation during forty years, being the first complete Bible in
Chinese published by the Society. Even now the demand
for it requires it to be kept in stock at the depository at
Shanghai.

During this period the printing of the Fuchow colloquial

1 See Chapter XXIX.

1871] GRATUITOUS DISTRIBUTION 311

version of the Bible and tentative portions of a Mandarin
version called for grants. The Society in May, 1869, re
quested the Board of Managers to hasten the publication of
a Mandarin version since it is generally understood through
out China. A committee at Peking, of which Bishop
Schereschewski was a member, took up the work and in
1872 the New Testament in Mandarin was published at the
joint expense of the American and British Bible Societies.
This was a new practical illustration of federation, cau
tiously tested in the field by missionaries, its timid inventors,
and thus commended to the Boards at home.

Up to the year 1866, grants of the Society to missions in
China had been designated for the expense of translation
and printing ; the missionaries distributing the books com
monly without asking payment from the people. As early
as 1866 the Presbyterian Mission in Shanghai experimented
with sales. Five colporteurs were sent out who left some
part of the Bible, generally by sale, in 30,000 Chinese fami
lies ; and when a proposal was made by this and other mis
sions that a part of the money granted by the Society should
be used to support colporteurs, the Board could not very
well refuse. A good colporteur in a pagan land is the face
of a personified, smiling, well-wishing Christianity. Ac
cordingly, the missionaries were authorised to use some part
of the Society's grants for maintaining colporteurs.

Such a development of the activities of the Society might
be suspected by some to be partly owing to the weakness of a
people unable to resist energetic foreigners. It was, how
ever, encouraged by the reception given to the Bible by the
Chinese. A missionary cautioned some country people to
whom he was giving Bible portions to take care of the
books. One of the peasants said to him : " Do you mean
that you think we wrould destroy printed books? Never! "
A certain amount of discrimination and intelligence was al
ways shown by the people after the practice of selling
Scriptures drew more thoughtful attention to the books.
Rev. Mr. Mills, a Presbyterian Missionary of Tungchow,
travelled far afield and sold a considerable number of Scrip
tures in the very birthplace of Confucius. Rev. Dr. Blod-
gett of the American Board's North China Mission, hap-

3i2 PEOPLES WHO KNOW NOT [1861-

pened upon a little company of Chinese studying the Bible
by night. They were weavers who had to work late in
finishing some special order, and one of their number would
be asked to read the Bible to them while they worked. In
one of these serious groups of weavers the reader was a
woman. As among all other races, some among the Chinese,
too, learned faith in Jesus Christ through the unaided read
ing of the Scriptures. Rev. Dr. Martin, of the Presbyterian
Mission, wrote of a Chinaman who had never seen a mis
sionary, but had become convinced of the truth by poring
over a Bible which years ago had somehow fallen into his
hands. Such incidents thrillingly show the fitness of the
blessed book for inner needs of every race of men.

Several times the question of appointing an Agent for
China was raised in the Board of Managers. Both the
British and Foreign Bible Society and the National So
ciety of Scotland were represented in China by Agents, and
many of the American missionaries thought that Bible dis
tribution could be more effective under supervision of an
Agent of the Society. The .Board, however, did not wish
to incur the expense. As late as 1868 it decided again that
so long as missionaries were willing to superintend distribu
tion, the money might well be committed to them for that
purpose. Five years later, however, Bible distribution ab
sorbed so much time that the Board appointed the Rev. L.
II. Gulick, M.D., a missionary who had served long in
Micronesia, to be Agent of the Society for China and Japan.
The books in Mandarin, in Classical and in local colloquials
printed at the expense of the Society in Shanghai and
Fuchow, were being sent to Nanking, Hankow, Peking,
Tientsin, and far up the Yangtse River as well as among
the coast provinces. Grants were being made to the Ameri
can Board, to the Methodist Episcopal, the Protestant Epis
copal, the Presbyterian, and the Reformed Church (Dutch)
missions. From the beginning (in 1833) °f the Society's
serious work in China until the appointment of Dr. Gulick
as Agent in 1874, 1,594,818 volumes of Scripture had been
printed in Chinese, and 1,300,000 of them had been put into
circulation. The cost to the Society of this great work was
$215,280.93.

1871] A JAPANESE EMBASSY 313

In 1837 the Board made a grant to Rev. Dr. Gutzlaft in
the hope that Gospels translated into Japanese by him might
carry an appeal to the unknown empire of Japan. But
the first words from America heard by the Japanese were
the English words of the hymn, " Before Jehovah's awful
throne ye nations bow with holy joy." The Japanese could
not understand these words, but they were mightily aston
ished at the music of the hand upon the deck of Commo
dore Perry's flagship as it led with the tune of " Old Hun
dred " the singing of a thousand manly voices engaged in
divine worship on a Sunday morning in July, 1853.

Fully six years passed after Perry's first visit to Japan he-
fore the treaty with the United States was ratified. Then
only could foreigners venture to live in Japan. The ob
jection of the old feudal system to any breaking down of
the wall of exclusiveness was like the objection of a bat to
the rays of the sun. Happily some Japanese preferred the
sun. In 1859 the first American Missionaries went to
Japan; Rev. Mr. Liggins and Rev. Mr. \Yilliams of the
Protestant Episcopal Church, Rev. Mr. Yerbeck of the Re
formed (Dutch) Church and Dr. Hepburn of the Presby
terian Church. These men were instantly confronted with
the need of Bibles for the missions. There was no Bible in
Japanese. Dr. S. Wells Williams, the Chinese scholar, and
Dr. Gutzlaff, the learned free lance of China missions, had
long ago attempted something in the way of translations into
Japanese ; and later Rev. Dr. Bettelheim, a converted He
brew from Hungary, who had been sent by British naval of
ficers as missionary to the Lu Chu Islands, had translated
portions of Scripture which had been printed by the So
ciety for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge. Other
wise no word of Scripture existed in Japanese. Application
was made at once to the Society for aid.

So far as the Board was concerned, this newly opened
empire was little more than a name in the year 1860. In
June of that year the Board invited the Japanese ambassa
dors making a tour of the Western nations to visit the Bible
House. The ambassadors came ; went over the whole build
ing ; minutely inspected the machinery for printing and bind
ing; were especially amazed by the hydraulic presses used

3i4 PEOPLES WHO KNOW NOT [1861-

to smooth the printed sheets, and went away delighted with
the Society and its wonderful works. The visit of the
Japanese Embassy put Japan on the map of the Society,
although the name was still followed by a question mark.

In the same year Revr. Dr. B. J. Bettelheim, who had re
turned from the Lu Chu Islands and established himself in
the state of Illinois, offered to give the Society his transla
tion of parts of the Bible, assuring the Board that all Japa
nese scholars would testify to the high quality of the lan
guage used. The Dutch interpreter of the Japanese Em
bassy, said that the ambassadors thought educated people in
Japan might discover the meaning of Dr. Bettelheim's trans
lation, but that the masses could not understand it at all.
Meanwhile Dr. Hepburn at Yokohama advised on general
principles that if Dr. Bettelheim's manuscript could be had
for any reasonable sum, it might help other Bible trans
lators. After consideration, however, the Board decided
not to accept Dr. Bettelheim's offer.

In view of the phenomenon of a knowledge of the Dutch
language by many Japanese, the .Hoard in 1861 sent a supply
of Holland Bibles to be distributed among those Japanese
who had been in trade with the Hollanders living on the
little island in front of Nagasaki which had been a trade
mart of the Dutch during some two hundred years. Taking
these Scriptures to the Japanese was at best a forlorn hope,
since the strictly commercial vocabulary of Dutch which
was used at Nagasaki could hardly throw light on theological
terms. But in this urgent case more than one order for
these Scriptures came from the missions in Japan. Since
all educated Japanese could read Chinese, the missionaries
also ordered Scriptures in that language. In their hope that
the Bible might speak to the Japanese before they themselves
could, like the ancient alchemists, they cast various ma
terials into the crucible and watched to see if base metal
was transmuted into gold.

The Society placed in the hands of missionaries of dif
ferent denominations in Japan during the period from 1861
to 1871, $4,800 for use in translation of the Bible, and for
purchase of Chinese Scriptures. It also sent out 1200
volumes of Dutch and of English Scriptures for direct

1871] JAPANESE EXCLUSIVENESS 315

distribution. The money granted for translation was used
for supporting the Japanese assistants. The formal begin
ning of Bible translation in Japanese was about 1865, and
by the year 1866 the missions had agreed to organise for
Bible translation a select committee so that there might be
for all but one Japanese version.

During this preliminary work the people showed interest
in the Bibles offered by the Americans. The nation had
been awakened by cannon. A considerable number of the
people were eagerly asking how they, too, could get such
cannon. But some of them actually found food for hungry
souls in the American book. People who read the Bible for
the first time enjoy the vividness of a first impression; the
new thought remains a topic of meditation. We to whom
the ideas in general are old, often fail in meditation be
cause we think we know the truths taught by the Bible.
The importance of the fresh first impression had not oc
curred to Abbe Hue when he sneeringly inquired if Protes
tant missionaries thought they would convert China by plac
ing a few Bibles on its shores. At all events it does not
seem to have occurred to him that the spirit of God is able
to use His own word. By the time, in 1868, that the Gospel
of Matthew was ready for the press, the missionaries had
already been rejoiced by learning that a young man in prison
had been converted through Bible study recommended by a
Chinese teacher. In that same year two Japanese of educa
tion and rank were baptised, having found faith in Jesus
Christ through copies of the Bible in Chinese sent out at a
venture from mission stations. The faith of the mission
aries was justified. The rock had in it a soft spot that
having once been reached by the elements, all external things
began to work together to reduce the granite to powder.

For Africa the first serious work taken up by the Society
was aid to the Gaboon Mission of the American Board, and
to the Cape Palmas Mission of the Protestant Episcopal
Church. African tribes had neither writing nor alphabet.
Hence distribution of Scriptures must wait upon mission
schools. In 1870 the entire New Testament in Mpongwe
was printed at the mission press on the Gaboon at the ex
pense of the Society. Grants of Scripture portions were

316 PEOPLES WHO KNOW NOT [1861-

inade from the stock in Xe\v York, and curiously enough
some copies in Arabic were called for to be read by the Mo
hammedan negroes engaged in trade in all that region. On
the eastern side of the African continent the American
Board's Missionaries in Natal were translating the Bible.
The book of Genesis in Zulu was printed in Natal at the ex
pense of the Society, together with several additional por
tions of the Old Testament. By such slo\v stages the So
ciety pu-rsued its path of help to American missions in what
was then almost literally the unknown continent.

Beyond the confines of Christendom the only lands in
which the Society at this time had an agency were in the
region at the eastern end of the Mediterranean known as
the Levant. Rev. Dr. 1. G. Bliss, the Agent, wrote with
fluent optimism of successes in Bible distribution. There
was opposition from some of the Greek and Armenian
clergy, and many ingenious devices of obstruction were used
by the Turkish authorities, but the Bible made its \vay among
the people so rapidly that in 1870 the Society had no more
promising field abroad. In that region, where no inherited
conviction of Christian truth gives support to Bible work,
there were fifty principal Bible depositories of the Society
with 175 branch depots. These depositories were found in
European Turkey, in Greece, in the storied islands of the
^Egean Sea, on the shores of the Dardanelles, in the old
Roman provinces of Asia, in Syria and Mesopotamia, on
the banks of the Nile and in the Empire of Persia — wher
ever there were American missionaries. Forty colporteurs
and six Bible women were engaged in distributing Scrip
tures.

In Persia a colporteur exploring the country went through
LTamadan, the city of Esther and Haman, as far as Ispahan,
and came back delighted with the reception given to him
and his books. In Egypt, Rev. Dr. Lansing took a colpor
teur to a great fair at Mansoura. The Patriarch of the
Coptic Church was at the fair and his presence was dreaded
by the men of the Book. The tactful colporteur, however,
went straight to the Patriarch asking if he had forbidden the
people to buy Bibles. " Oh, no," said the Patriarch, " God
forbid that I should do such a thing! " The colporteur then

1871] FREEWILL OFFERINGS OF A NATION 317

suggested that he might buy one himself. The great pre
late bought, and the whole stock of Bibles was quickly taken
up. Mohammedans in different parts of Turkey bought
Bibles or Testaments and one expressed the feeling of many
when he said : " This is the best and the holiest book 1 ever
saw ; it cannot do me harm." It must not be supposed from
these incidents that the work of the colporteur comports with
ease. Such labour requires too great self-denial for any
but the most devoted Christians. The incidents of this
period, however, justified belief that every Bible or Testa
ment sold kindles a light which cannot be extinguished.

Rev. Dr. Bliss returned to the United States on furlough
in 1865, with a plan, elaborated lovingly in detail, for a
Bible House in the heart of Constantinople. As a centre of
all forms of evangelism such a building would send out light
to every part of the Levant. The Board could not consent
to use funds of the Society for the purpose ; but it authorised
Dr. Bliss to raise money by special subscription, letting it be
understood that the Society took no responsibility in the
matter. Dr. Bliss presented his case with such contagious
zeal in different parts of the United States that he succeeded
in raising about $60,000 for the construction of the Bible
House and returned to Constantinople with a glad heart.

During the period from 1861 to 1871 the cost to the So
ciety of supplying Scriptures in the languages of this great
Agency amounted to $230,951. Including this amount the
expenditure during this period in non-Christian lands whose
people had erected their various civilisations in ignorance of
the Bible and of its existence was $411,385. This great
sum represented a part of the cost to American Christians
of their obedience to their Lord, of their compassion for
men who grope in spiritual and ethical uncertainties, and of
their conviction that the Bible makes men and makes na
tions. It represented the worship by free-will offerings of
many thousands of our people; and by every token the gift
had found favour with God.

CHAPTER XXXVII

THE JUBILEE CELE15RATION OF 1 866

Ix May, 1865, the Society entered its fiftieth year of serv
ice. At the same time a new era dawned in the United
States with the end of civil war. The rattle of small arms
and thunder of cannon were stilled. The passions of those
who fought passed away like bad dreams. The great armies
dispersed. Long separated families were reunited. Of
ficers and soldiers packed up their regimental trappings and
returned to their ordinary occupations. Throughout the
land useful production gradually displaced waste and de
struction. There was a general revulsion of feeling from
distress and anxiety to thanksgiving and joy. The Bible
Society, also, had special occasion for joy as it entered its
fiftieth year. It could look back upon a half century of
struggle and often of anxiety, cheered, however, by con
stant gains of strength through the support and leadership
of its Master. To the Board it seemed a happy and provi
dential coincidence that the beginning of so notable a year
of its history should be associated with the beginning of a
new order of things in the history of the republic. For this
the Managers offered humble and hearty thanksgiving to
God.

At its regular meeting, May 4, 1865, the Board appointed
the current year to be observed as a Jubilee, delegating to the
Anniversaries Committee all necessary arrangements. The
Committee appealed to all the churches in the country, to
observe the Jubilee year by special services, and invited the
Auxiliaries to change each regular annual meeting into a
little Jubilee meeting that would commemorate the increased
circulation of the Bible as well as the multiplied evidences of
its power. The Committee also suggested four particular
objects which might be undertaken by the Society as appro
priate to a year of praise and thanksgiving: First, the

1866-1871] A YEAR OF COMMEMORATION 319

supply of destitution in the South ; second, a general supply
of the needy throughout the home land ; third, the electro-
typing of the Arabic Bible, and fourth, the issue of the re
vised Spanish Bible. There would be no general call for
special contributions, but Auxiliary Societies might well
take up one or more of these objects and do what they found
possible to make it a success.

The appeal sent out by the Committee was written by the
Rev. William Adams, D.D., and rang out clear and pene
trating like the old Hebrew trumpet call at the beginning of
each Jubilee year. Dr. Adams pointed out how the Society
had surpassed the most sanguine expectations of its
founders, receiving the cordial confidence and support of
the entire country ; multiplying its Auxiliaries in all parts of
the land; sending out millions of copies of Scriptures in all
directions which, like those placed in the army during the
war, could be reckoned as seed cast on a subsiding flood, and
destined to reappear with blessed results in future growth.
He noted the changes since the organisation of the Society
throughout the world, in sentiment, in forms of government,
and in religious devotion to God with a new regard for the
Bible; and he called upon all the people to expect quick
progress of the Kingdom, like a tree long in growth, which
after maturity, in one season blossoms out and bears abun
dant fruit.

Responses to these appeals came from all parts of the
land, Auxiliaries and ecclesiastical bodies heartily pledging
action in the line proposed. Congratulations \vere received
from the British and Foreign Bible Society, the Bible So
ciety of France, and other Societies in Europe.

The Board arranged as a part of the exercises of the
fiftieth year a series of sermons by eminent clergymen to be
delivered in the first instance in New York City. The first
Jubilee sermon, on the " Advantages of a Written Revela
tion," by Rev. William Adams, D.D., was preached October
15, 1865; the second by Rev. Dr. Yermilye, November 19,
on the " Purity of the Bible " ; the third by Rev. Dr. Charles
Hodge of Princeton Theological Seminary, January 21,
1866, on the " Inspiration of the Bible " ; the fourth, Feb
ruary 1 8, 1866, by President J. W. Cummings of Wesleyan

320 THE JUBILEE CELEBRATION [1861-

Univcrsity on " The Bible and Civil Government " ; the fifth
by Rev. R. S. Storrs, D.D., Jr., A Larch i8th, on "The Bible
the Rook of Mankind"; the sixth by Rev. Dr. \Y. R. Wil
liams of the Baptist Church, April 15. on " What the Bible
has clone for the World during the Last Century "; the sev
enth by Rev. Dr. Alexander Yinton, April 22, on " The Hu
mane in the .Bible '' ; and the eighth by the Rev. Isaac Fer
ris, D.D., LL.D., Chancellor of the University of the State
of Xew York, May 6th, on the " History of the American
Bible Society."

These sermons were listened to by large and interested
audiences ; several of them being repeated in the House of
Representatives at Washington, and the most of them in
Philadelphia, Boston, Cincinnati, and other cities. Taken
together they constituted a powerful agency to turn the
thoughts of the people to the Bible and the memorial cele
bration which would reach its climax on the fiftieth Anni
versary of the day on which the Society was organised.

That anniversary day was Thursday, the loth of Alay,
1866. The Board of Managers met as usual at the Bible
House, where they welcomed as representatives of the
British and Foreign Bible Society the Rev. Thomas Phil
lips, senior District Secretary, and the Rev. Thomas Nolan
of St. Peter's Church, Regent Square, London ; of the
Bible Society of France the Rev. Caesar Pascal ; of the Bible
Society of Upper Canada, the Rev. Lachlin Taylor, D.D.,
and Rev. William Ormiston. D.D. Besides these men from
other Bible Societies, representatives were present of twenty-
nine Auxiliary Societies from Massachusetts to California.
After transaction of the formal business of an Annual Meet
ing, the Society with its guests adjourned to the Academy
of Music where the celebration of the fiftieth Anniversary
took place, President Lenox taking the Chair at ten o'clock.

The platform was filled with an assemblage of eminent
and venerable men such as are not often brought together.
The Bible Society Record in describing the meeting, said :
" Rarely have we seen so large an audience equally inter
ested, patient, and deeply affected with the spirit of the
occasion."

A very interesting feature of the Jubilee Anniversary

1871] REV. DR. SPRING HONORED 321

was the presence on the platform of the Rev. Dr. Gardiner
Spring, who briefly addressed the meeting. As the young
est of the founders of the Soeiety in 1816 and one of the
three surviving members of the Convention, he presented
to the meeting, after giving thanks to God for the expe
riences of his own life, the single thought, " It is my earnest
desire that the God of the Bible shall be honoured in your
future career as He has been in some measure in the past."

Immediately following the words of Dr. Spring, Bishop
C. P. M'llvaine of Ohio arose, giving as an excuse for his
doing so that, while he was too young in 1816 to be present
at the organisation of the Society, he remembered his im
pressions as a boy on seeing Dr. Boudinot and some of the
delegates ; and how later, in college, he was moved by an
address by Dr. Spring. He added that he felt unable
passively to hear the words, perhaps the farewell words, ad
dressed to the Society by this venerable father, and there
fore he requested that the audience rise in testimony of re
spect to Dr. Spring. Immediately the vast audience rose
and remained standing for some time in silence and in
tears.

Among the addresses at the Jubilee Anniversary we can
only mention a few. Rev. Thomas Phillips, of the British
and Foreign Bible Society, pointed out that a Jubilee is an
opportunity which may occur only once in a lifetime to re
view the past and stimulate new zeal for the future. He
rapidly described the Jubilee of the British and Foreign So
ciety in 1854 as a time for thanksgiving, a time for reas
serting the nature and source of the Bible, and a time for
urging Bible lovers to become Bible givers. He brought
to the American Bible Society the salutations of the older
Society, gracefully suggesting that she had been in the habit
of considering herself a parent to the American Society, but
now that the younger Society had attained to the respect
able age of fifty, he would salute her as a sister and heartily
thank God for her work in the world. The Rev. Thomas
Nolan emphasised the fostering care of God shown in the
history of the Bible Societies. The stereotype process was
invented just a short time before the British and Foreign
Bible Society was organised and required a method of quick

322 THE JUBILEE CELEBRATION [1861-

multiplication of Bibles. Again the Society with the appli
ances for printing available at the mission presses in Beirut
and Smyrna working full speed, would have required 6,000
years to print a supply of Arabic .Bibles for the 120,000,000
who ought to have them. But shortly before the need arose
the invention of electrotyping solved the difficulty. Mr.
Nolan thanked the Society for the gift to the British So
ciety of a set of Arabic plates of the Bible, and rejoiced that
both Societies had fostered the Christian feeling expressed
by Lord Bexley : "If we cannot reconcile all opinions, let
us try to unite all hearts."

The Rev. Caesar Pascal, representative of the French
Bible Society, followed up this topic of the favour of God
shown to the Bible Society by remarking what an amazing
thing it seemed to friends in Paris that the American Society
in the midst of the war, with a financial crisis pressing and
a national debt computed by the thousand millions, could
still increase its operations and enlarge by many thousands
its circulation of Scriptures. In expressing the warm re
gard of the French Society he added that it is the Bible
which gives the United States its prominent place in the
world, and makes the destiny of the United States rest
under Cod to a great extent with Societies like this.

Major-General O. C). Howard of the United States Army,
who one year before on that day was still commanding the
right wing of General Sherman's army in North Carolina,
made a warm appeal for attention to the needs of the
South, and especially of the poor whites and the freed
slaves.

There were also strong addresses on the Bible in action.
Rev. Dr. Rufus Anderson, Secretary of the American
Board, pointed out that the American Bible Society in fifty
years had spent about $800,000 for printing and distributing
Bibles in foreign lands and chiefly in pagan countries. He
said that more Bibles had thus been distributed outside of
Christendom since the Bible Society era than were in all
the world from Moses to the Reformation. By trying to
form some impression of the vastness of the influence of
this distribution, it is possible to see how essential the Bible
is to the missionary.

1871] THE GAINS OF FIFTY YEARS 323

Rev. I. G. Bliss, Agent of the Society in the Levant, hav
ing to watch over an area of 1,200,000 square miles, made a
strong appeal for adequate support. In the eight years of
his service the proceeds of books sold in his Agency
amounted to $22,000. This sum had been paid by the poor ;
the books for the most part being sold for only one-third
of their cost.

Rev. Dr. Jonas King of the American Board's Mission in
Athens, Greece, who had received during forty years grants
for Greek Scriptures, emphasised the truth that missionary
work shows the Bible to be the centre of the. moral world as
the sun is the centre of the physical world.

The Hon. Robert C. Winthrop of Massachusetts, the
statesman and orator who followed Daniel Webster in the
United States Senate, invited his hearers to think of the in
fluence of the 21,000,000 volumes of Scripture sent out by
the Society during these fifty years. They have gone to
people who were without them, and it were better to endure
war or pestilence or any other variety of famine than a
famine of the word of God. " The influence of these
Bibles," he said, " has nothing to approach it in importance
in all the boasted achievements of mankind." And then he
appealed to the people to reflect that "if the Bible stands
alone, in measureless superiority, in peerless pre-eminence,
so have Societies devoted to its publication a paramount
claim upon the support, the sympathy and the co-operation
of all Christians."

The addresses were eloquent and in some passages very
impressive. For full five hours the large audience kept up
its interest. Then President Mark Hopkins of Williams
College, pronounced the benediction, and the assembly dis
solved, with hearty good wishes for the future of the Ameri
can Bible Society.

That passage of Mr. Winthrop's appeal was needed which
reminded his audience that Societies devoted to Bible circu
lation have a paramount claim upon the support of all
Christians. A great number of new schemes of benevolence
had sprung up during the war period. The Agents of the
Society and its Auxiliaries reported strenuous efforts being
made throughout the country to raise money for colleges,

324 THE JUBILEE CELEBRATION [1861-

theological seminaries, denominational extension schemes,
endowment of hospitals, homes for disabled soldiers and
sailors, and similar institutions throughout the South as well
as schemes for the education and uplift of freedmen. The
difficulty of maintaining interest in the Bible Society work
was felt very strongly in cities. Churches absorbed in
purely denominational work were very glad to have supplies
of Scriptures from the Bible Society, but did not feel under
special obligations toward it since it was an undenomina
tional institution. In the cities there \vas more and more
difficulty in finding churches willing to put the pulpit, even
for a single Sunday in the year, at the disposal of the
Society.

In this careless attitude toward the support of the So
ciety people forgot that their missions, both at home and
abroad, were receiving large sums in aid of their work from
the Society ; that the churches in the days when missions
were young had urged the Society to take up work in Tur
key, China, Japan, and other countries. The Society had
become involved in and attached to this work ; the churches
should not lose their interest, lest they be classed with cer
tain unthrifty farmers who will set out acres of choice
peach trees and then leave them to the borers and the weeds.
The people forgot, too, that if the Bible Society were left
to go to pieces for want of support, they themselves would
be the first to suffer from such a catastrophe.

It was with pleasure, therefore, that the Board learned
that many stimulating sermons on the Bible and the claims
of support for its circulation had been delivered at this
time in different parts of the country. Here we can give
space to a brief mention only of the charge of Bishop East-
burn of Massachusetts to the clergy of the diocese. The
subject of this document, issued May 2, 1866, was " The
Bible Society's Jubilee Year." The paper reviewed the
history of the formation of the Society which was within
his own memory. It then, in eloquent terms, pointed out
" what a distinct assertion this great institution is every day
making in the face of the whole country of the inspiration
and divine authority of the Holy Scriptures." On this ac-

1871] NEW INSPIRATION FOR SOCIETY 325

count prayer and labour is due, he said, for the continued
prosperity of the work of the Society.

A time of transition is always one which sifts aims and
motives. The period of the Civil War was to the Bible So
ciety such a period of sifting. Such experiences as have
been noted during the period of the war developed in the
Society inspiration to undertake and vigour to execute.
From these experiences, hard and wearing as they were,
the Bible Society had occasion to rejoice with thanksgiving
as it came forth, entering upon its second half century as a
new, well-equipped body assured of success, through divine
guidance, in all the undertakings of its destiny.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

FORGET NOT ALL HIS BENEFITS

A PROVERB of the Zulus in South Africa says, " You can
count the apples on one tree, but you cannot count the trees
in one apple." It is a breezy thrust at him who knows too
much, and a quiet hint that attention may yield profit as
well as interest.

In the fifty years whose close was celebrated with thanks
giving in May, 1866, the Society received $10,434,953.74.
Aside from the proceeds of sales of books at or below cost,
important sources of the receipts were :

Donations from Churches, Societies

and Individuals, $1,500,470

Donations from Auxiliaries .... 1,386,146
Donations from Legacies .... 1,145,149
These large sums, like the apples on the Zulus' tree, are ob
vious and important facts of the Society's arduous labours
during half a century. J>ut many important details of the
present, the future, and the permanent usefulness of the So
ciety can only be observed by a closer examination of the re
lations of past events.

In such a retrospect one is particularly struck with the
enormous additions to the home field of the Society since
the close of the first quarter century of its history. Texas
was then a foreign country; California, which included a
vast expanse of territory to the eastward of the present
limits of the state, then belonged to Mexico; and in the
northwest the great undefined region known as " Oregon "
was of uncertain ownership, being occupied by British as
well as American hunters and explorers. All of these vast
regions at the end of another twenty-five years were in
cluded in the United States. Hundreds of thousands of
immigrants had come into the country and were fast settling
the lands west of the Mississippi. Willing or not willing,
the Society had been irresistibly driven to attempt the supply

326

1861-1871] CHRISTIAN SOLICITUDE 32?

of the great, needy populations thus placed within its reach.

The temporary rending of the Union by the Civil War
with the severing of relations with the Southern Auxiliary
Societies, and with the immense demand upon the Society
for the supply of the army and the destitute South seemed
to have nothing but strain and pain for the Board of Man
agers and the Executive officers. In after-thought, how
ever, none could but see a providence in the building of the
Bible House at Astor Place, without which the Board would
have been helpless in this emergency. All saw, too, that
through this terrible stress of supply, the ties uniting as
sociates in the Bible House, the bonds holding together the
Auxiliaries all over the country, yes — and those linking the
Society with brethren of the Southern States, were more
firmly knit ; very much as the fellowship of a fierce cam
paign binds members of the same regiment to one another
almost as members of one family.

Engrossing anxieties in the home field had not hindered
the expansion of the Society's fields abroad. Those fields
had increased to a degree never imagined, in most sanguine
moments, by the executive officers of the first twenty-five
years. Europe, France, Germany, Russia and even Italy,
had received thousands of volumes of Scriptures through
the solicitude of the men who looked upon the world from
the windows of the Bible House. Bible Society colpor
teurs were ranging over the Turkish Empire from the
Danube to the Persian Gulf, distributing Scriptures in lan
guages which, like Bulgarian for instance, had not been
heard of in New York during the first quarter century of
the Society's existence. In China the Bible was being
printed for the Society in at least six different dialects and
American funds were joined with those of the two British
Bible Societies to secure the preparation of a truly union
version of the classical Chinese. Japan had come to light.
Japanese Ambassadors had inspected and praised the Bible
House in New York. Copies of the Scriptures in Dutch
and in Chinese had been disseminated for the Society in
Japan, turning a chosen few men to Christianity ; and a
Committee of scholarly missionaries were preparing for a
Japanese version of the New Testament.

328 FORGET NOT ALL HIS BENEFITS [1861-

American Missionaries in Mexico, Central America, in
both Spanish and Portuguese South America were dis
pensing to eager inquirers Scriptures provided by the So
ciety. From India and even from Africa missionaries were
calling for additional grants to reach multitudes that might
now be won to the knowledge of Jesus Christ. Missionary
ships in the Pacific Ocean were carrying Bibles printed by
the Society to numbers of the little Micronesian Islands and
bringing back word of the wonderful influence of the word
of God upon the people. This was not the fruit of well-
planned enterprise on the part of the Board. All that its
members could say on seeing the great fields inviting them
to foreign lands was, " What hath God wrought ! "

Expansion in the foreign field cheered the members of
the Board by bringing them into touch with men converted
abroad, and helping the Bible distribution of the Society.
Dr. Bliss of the Levant Agency described in 1866 some of
his colporteurs working in the city of Constantinople. One
was a Greek — tall, sallow, sorrowful, and taciturn, who
had been working twelve years as a colporteur, dealing
largely with his own people, the Greeks ; selling many books
also to Mohammedans until the government interfered, and
selling some too, to Jews. He had succeeded in inducing
people to buy about 8,000 volumes of Scripture. Another
was a thin, nervous Armenian named Avedis who \vent
about burdened like a pack-horse, with a basket of books
hanging from his shoulder and a carpet-bag full of books
to balance it in front, another carpet-bag, also full of books,
in his left hand, and two or three sample New Testaments
in his right hand. When any one raised objections to buy
ing the Scriptures, Avedis would talk the caviller into buy
ing if it took an hour. This colporteur had a mind of his
own. He objected strongly to selling the Ancient Armenian
Bible because in his view that unintelligible language has
been used by Satan to ruin the souls of multitudes of his
fellow countrymen. Another successful colporteur was a
blind theological student. After his study hours he would
feel his way carefully along the street, offering Scriptures to
any whose attention he could gain. Taking a portion of
Bible in raised letters in his hand and reading with his fin-

i8/i] MISSIONARY TRANSLATIONS 329

gers passages to the people helped him to dispose of his
books when a man had been induced to open a Testament
and find in it the verses which the blind man was reading.
Simple minded followers of Jesus Christ like these, in
South America, in the United States, in Europe and in Asia
had been doing an important service as pioneers who open
the way for the missionary.

Of the manner in which missionaries opened a way for
the Bible Society much could be seen in the important lan
guages in which Scriptures were printed during this period
at the Bible House. Of German and French Scriptures
large editions had been printed almost every year from 1817
onward. For the Jews the Old Testament in English was
printed without chapter headings, running title, or other
accessories. Among the Asiatic languages, besides the
Arabic of which detailed mention is given belo\v, the Mod
ern Armenian Bible and the New Testament, and a pocket
Testament in Modern Syriac (the colloquial language used
by the Nestorians of Persia), were electrotyped and printed
during the second quarter century.

Among the languages of the American Indians the New
Testament in Dakota, translated by Riggs and William
son, missionaries of the American Board, had been electro-
typed and printed, along with parts of the Old Testament
in the same language, and the New Testament in Cherokee.
From the \Yest Indies the Society had received a curious
manuscript of the Gospel of St. Mark in Creolese, the dia
lect of the mixed coloured population of the Islands of
Curacao. The translation had been made by the Rev. S.
Van Diessel, a missionary labouring in that island, and the
Board was glad, on being assured of the faithfulness of
the version, to add it to the list for which the Society is
responsible.

For the Islands of the Pacific the Hawaiian family Bible
had been electrotyped and printed, together with portions
for several of the Islands of Micronesia, and the latest work
for the healing of the nations undertaken at the Bible House
during this period was the electrotyping of the Bulgarian
New Testament with the old Slavic in parallel columns.

Among these numerous versions of the Bible, the Arabic

330 FORGET NOT ALL HIS BENEFITS [di
version deserves more than a casual glance which it has
had. The Arabic version used for forty years or more by
the British and Foreign Bible Society was the work of
Sarkis, a Alaronite Bishop of the Seventeenth Century. He
translated the whole Bible from the Vulgate for the use of
the Roman Catholic Church in Syria and the work was
published at Rome in 16/1. In the form there printed the
Latin original accompanied the Arabic in parallel columns.
This version being the best available was adopted by the Brit
ish Society in 1818, the Apocrypha and the Latin of the
diglot being of course discarded. Scriptures of this version
were the ones first purchased by the American Bible Society
to supply American missionaries in Syria, and were gen
erally used in that region until about 1864.

A new Arabic translation free from the inaccuracies of
the Vulgate seemed absolutely essential. " The Arabic
translator " wrote the missionaries in urging their plea, " is
interpreting the lively oracles for forty millions of an un
dying race whose successive and ever augmenting genera
tions shall fail only with the final termination of all things.
. . . To give to them a Christian literature, or that germinat
ing commencement of one which can perpetuate its life
and expand it into full grown maturity is to put in their
hands gigantic verities taking fast hold on the salvation
of myriads whom no man can number in the present and
all future generations ! "

Books in Arabic printed from type made in Europe are
intolerable to Oriental readers, because the curves and slopes
of the letters are not artistically proportioned. Rev. Dr.
Eli Smith, who commenced the great work of translation,
first took the finest available specimens of Arabic caligraphy,
and by long, patient labour reproduced perfectly all the
graceful forms for which Arabic manuscripts are remark
able. The pattern letters which he drew averaged about
three inches in height. Mr. Hallock, the printer, with a
pantograph then traced the letters, reduced to the required
diamensions, upon polished steel from which he finally
cut the punches with which matrices were formed. So per
fect were Dr. Smith's models that the form of the letters
has never been modified in the least. They satisfy the

i8/ij ELECTROTYPING THE ARABIC BIBLE 331

reader most finical, and by triumphantly outdoing efforts
of past type-founders they disarm the Mohammedan hatred
of everything Christian. The form of type having been
fixed, the work of translation could go on with high hopes.

This translation of the Scriptures begun by Dr. Eli Smith,
revised and completed by Dr. C. V. A. Van Dyck, was
brought to a conclusion in sixteen years. The laborious
solicitude with which accuracy was sought should be noted.
Of every form thirty proofs were taken and sent to as
many scholars of all nations, their suggestions and criticisms
being carefully considered before the form was released for
printing. After several editions had been printed from
type at Beirut, the mission unanimously requested the So
ciety to electrotype the book in ten different sizes and the
request was warmly urged by the American Board; with the
result that one of the great works signalising the Jubilee
year was the making of electrotype plates for the Arabic
Bible, Rev. Dr. Van Dyck, the translator, supervising the
work in New York. The first plate was electrotyped
March 15th, 1866.

After completing three sets of plates, of which one set
was sent to the British and Foreign Bible Society and one
retained in New York for safety, the work of electrotyping
was transferred to Beirut, the Society furnishing a complete
equipment and a skilled electrotyper to instruct the Syrian
workmen in the process. Since that time this Bible has
been electrotyped and printed at the Presbyterian Mission
Press in Beirut, the American Bible Society paying all ex
penses of publication year by year.

It was pleasant to render the kindly service to the British
and Foreign Bible Society as to plates of the new version.
That Society wished to buy a duplicate set of the Arabic
plates and the Committee to which the matter was re
ferred brought in a report of which the noble principle was
expressed as follows : " No particular part of this broad
work belongs of right to either Society exclusively, except
so far as God in His Providence may afford to one a
more ready access and greater facilities than to the other.
In this great work of evangelising the world we should press
forward side by side, with one heart and one purpose.

332 FORGET NOT ALL HIS BENEFITS [1861-

Xeither should ' they call aught of the things they possess
their own/ but all things should be ' in common ' for the
Master's sake. Translations should be used interchange
ably, and any advantage or facility secured by one Society
should be a gain to the cause and to all who love it."

The Board of Managers approved the recommendation
of the Committee and voted to furnish the duplicate electro
type plates without charge. It accompanied this decision
with the largest liberty for the free and unrestricted use of
these plates by the British Society with its own imprint, con
ditioned only by the provision that no alteration be made in
the plates without the consent of the American Society.
Rev. Dr. Bergne in communicating a graceful resolution of
thanks from the Committee of the British and Foreign Bible
Society wrote to Dr. Holdich : " You resolve that the word
of God shall not be bound, and give us unrestricted liberty
to the use of a translation which owes its existence to the
able scholarship, laborious toil, and indomitable perseverance
of one of the best missionaries America has sent forth, and
whose name will be held in loving veneration not only in
the land where he has personally been known but wherever
the Arabic tongue is spoken and the Arabic Bible is circu
lated. For this we heartily thank your Board and shall
long cherish the pleasant remembrance of a transaction upon
which we believe the blessing of God will abundantly rest."

Besides this progress with new versions many events dur
ing this period favoured the task of the Society. But some
hindered it ; like the burning of Bibles by a priest in Mass
achusetts and like the suspicion of some good people in
Connecticut that the Society was mismanaging its affairs.
This history cannot give space to details of trials which in
the retrospect seem trivial. The Roman Catholic priest who
burned Bibles in 1869, probably really thought that he was
doing God service for he said, like one who boasts a good
deed, that he had gathered Bibles from the parish enough
to last him " all winter for kindling." Connecticut is near
enought to New York for its people to learn for themselves
exactly what the Society is doing at any moment, but in
1864, some of the good people of that state made known
to the Congregational General Association distrust of the

1871] FAVORING THE SOCIETY 333

wisdom and practical management of the American Bible
Society. The Association appointed a Committee to in
vestigate the management in detail. Two years later, in
June, 1866, the Committee reported through its chairman,
Rev. M. N. Morris, that it had made a full and careful in
vestigation by repeated visits to the Bible House. Upon
the recommendation of the Committee, the Association
adopted resolutions entirely clearing the Bible Society of
any mismanagement or carelessness, and giving thanks to
God for the ability and fidelity with which its affairs were
conducted. To these resolutions the Association added
another asking the Society to study the question whether a
way could not be devised, without detriment of the mission
ary work of the Society, for supplying its Bibles everywhere
through the ordinary trade, instead of limiting their sale
to a few only of the more important centres of business.
By such kindly action what seemed like a needless burden
cast upon the Board became a favouring word.

Three of the events which favoured the task of the So
ciety during the war period are worthy of emphasis. One
of these was the sequel to the daring scheme of building the
new Bible House on a great scale. This scheme was en
tirely foreign to the purpose of the Board until disappoint
ment had forced the giving up of the smaller plans which
the members of the Board had formed at the beginning.
In the sequel it was clearly seen that without that great
Bible House the comprehensive service of the Society for
the army a decade later could not possibly have been ren
dered. Then as a secondary consequence of the building
of the Bible House, the Young Men's Christian Associa
tion was established under that roof. From that associa
tion sprang the Christian Commission which co-operated in
the work of Bible distribution in the army in a most effi
cient way, using its hundreds of agents for the purpose,
while the Society had comparatively few agencies available
for work among the vastly increased masses of soldiers.

Another of these notable events was the sudden disap
pearance of an insurmountable obstacle like a failure of in
come at a time when general distress made larger contribu
tions improbable. The story of the change in the financial

334 FORGET NOT ALL HIS BENEFITS [1861-

condition of the Society at the height of the war reads like
a fairy tale of a good child liberally cared for, by a mighty
helper, for his good will and diligence. k The Treasure
House of the Lord is the hearts of His people." During
the five years after the Southern States seceded until the
armies were disbanded donations from churches and in
dividuals amounted to $263,681, an amount considerably
larger than donations of the same class in five years be
fore the secession. During the five years of the war period,
donations from Auxiliaries amounted to $375,754- This
amount was contributed to the Society after more than six
hundred Auxiliaries in the South had withdrawn, and it
exceeded the gifts of all the Auxiliaries in any previous
period of five years. Again during this same five years of
dire need on the part of the Society, receipts from legacies
amounted to $475,733. This was a larger sum than had
been received from legacies in any other period of five years
since the Society was founded, and it was $200,000 more
than the total of legacies in the next largest and next pre
vious five-year period. If the Society had possessed a wish
ing cap which would enable it to procure gold at a moment's
notice, the effect could not have been more startling.

One more notable event of this period was the astonish
ing agreement of the governments and generals of the two
conflicting armies to allow hundreds of thousands of Bibles
and Testaments to pass through their lines under a sort
of special truce almost inconceivable in war time. Great
as was the benefit of this episode to the soldiers of the South
while the war was waging, the kindly spirit which moved
the Society was thus made known to the Southern States
and prepared the Southern people to welcome the Society
after the war as if war had not been. The Society had not
been brought into collision with the strong sentiment against
union of the States which existed before the war because its
very object held it aloof from purely civil questions.
Therefore, it gladly undertook to act when it could, as an
Agent of the Lord to aid and renew the religious activities
of the South. It was the more ready to pour the living
waters into the Southern States through every channel since

1871] FAVORED BIBLE INSTITUTION 335

there can be no real or enduring pacification without the
Bible at the foundation of government and civilisation.

These and many similar occurrences in Bible Society his
tory incline men to say, " Events have favoured the enter
prise ! " Events have neither eyes, brains, nor hands that
they should favour or oppose. A truly intent mind will
ask Who caused those favouring events? A similar ques
tion often arises in the ordinary life of the community.
One man goes out to do what his hand finds to do. His
task is perfectly done. Another man fails in all that he tries
to do; when he looks at the first he will only say, " Lucky
dog!" But when the successful one has controlled all his
powers in the name of his Master, it comes to light that he
has a secret which makes him stronger. The secret is
that he is controlled by the thought, " My God helping me,
I can and will succeed in this thing!" Like the Hebrews
in their long and checkered history, the members of the
Society were taught during this time that when they were
weak God was still Almighty; when their plans seemed
about to fail. God's plans for them were most firmly founded.

The men in the Managers' Room did their best. Work
men in any great factory finish perfectly the single piece of
wood or of metal assigned to them, knowing that from these
detached pieces the general management will cause to be
built up and sent forth beautiful machines perfectly adapted
to work. What these men did in the Managers' Room in
the Bible House was of the same class ; they did the duty
next at hand, believing God would use their service for His
great ends. It is in the periods which come afterwards
that the proofs of the Bible appear ; and one great thing
evident to the later reader of this history is that this was
a reason to expect the interposition of the Most High at
this time, not in behalf of the Society, nor in behalf of the
men representing it and sorely tried by their burdens, but in
behalf of the task laid upon them and the Book which they
had to send out. The cause at stake was a great one. A
failure at New York would be felt throughout the home
land, with its growing population, and abroad among the
inarticulate masses of India, in China, in Japan, in Africa,

336 FORGET NOT ALL HIS BENEFITS [1861-1871

and in Siberia. The benefit of the events which favoured
the task of the Society was no personal gain. The gain
was to the people who needed and received the Bible and
gave glory to God Himself.

SIXTH PERIOD 1871-1891
CHAPTER XXXIX

PAYING THE COST OF WAR

GREAT and heroic deeds of the soldiers Mil the thoughts
of the common folk at the end of a successful war. Pain
ful surprises await the people, however, when the dolorous
task begins of adjusting the war's cost. After the civil
war, when business depression befogged the whole country,
the people at large were taken aback. Anxiety prevailed
in the land ; in some places money almost disappeared from
the markets ; suffering fell upon many a family ; even a
church, here and there, found it impossible to pay the salary
of the pastor, and until after the return of the United
States Treasury to specie payments in 1879, uncertainty
hampered all plans for business or benevolence.

As the nation tried to struggle up from the enfeebling
wastes of the war, local catastrophes added to the general
uneasiness. In October, 1871, the great fire in Chicago
destroyed 18,000 buildings with money losses estimated at
two hundred millions of dollars. The population of a wide
region was thus bereft — the Christians, of a noble rallying
point, and the pleasure-seekers, of the kind of values which
the Revelation describes as lost in the fall of Babylon.
This fire, by the way, occasioned a grant by the Board of
$5,000 worth of Scriptures to the Chicago Bible Society
which had 7,000 Bibles in stock, paid for, as one might say,
by sweat of the brow, and entirely destroyed in one day.
A year later, in November, 1872, was the great fire in Bos
ton, where granite buildings supposed to be absolutely fire
proof melted in the fervent heat, and where the cost of the
catastrophe to the city was at least eight millions of dol
lars. It was in Boston at this time that love for the Bible

337

338 PAYING THE COST OF WAR [1871-

had noble fruit in the circumstance that three of the larger
Episcopal churches of the city gave the Society $2,500 for
its work — an amount considerably more than their gifts
the year before.

The relation of these painful experiences to the story
of the Bible Society is that in several states financial strin
gency and local anxieties made men quite willing to shut
their eyes to the needs of the Bible cause. A little later
people would become accustomed to smaller incomes and
then they might perhaps begin to afford something toward
forwarding the interests of their great Master.

The Bible Society in 1867 reported its total receipts as
$734,089.14. Twelve years later, in 1878, its report of
receipts was $446,954.04. This gives some impression of
the financial stress which the period of recovery from the
effects of war brought to the Society. A comparison of the
receipts during each period of five years for twenty-five
years after the Jubilee Anniversary will give a clearer idea,
perhaps, of the anxieties of the Board of Managers.